6 

YFACILH 

7 

^'N/VG..i-,Tr  Off 
SAN  Ufts^j 


iHt  UNIVERSITY  LIBRAR? 

mmsijy  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 

LA  JOLU,  CALIFORNIA 


Historic  Progress 


American  Democracy 


AN    ADDRESS    DELIVERED   BEFORE    THE 


NEW-YORK   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY, 


SIXTY-FOURTH  ANNIVERSABT, 
DECEMBER    16,  18G8, 


JOHN  LOTHROP   MOTLEY. 


"  Sed  inter  hominem  et  belluam  hoc  maxime  interest  .  .  .  quort  Eomo  ra- 
tiocis  est  particeps,  per  quam  consequentia  cernit,  causas  rerum  videt,  earumque 
progressus  et  qnasi  antecessiones  non  i^morat,  similitudines  comparat,  et  rcbu6 
praeseutibus  adj ungit  atque  annectit  futuras."— Cic.  de  Off.  i.  16. 


NEW-YORK : 

CHARLES     SCRIBNER    AND     CO 

654      BKOADWAY. 

iscy. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1869,  by 

THE    NEW-YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the  Southern  District  of 

New-Yorl£. 


John  A.  Gkat  &  Grebn,  Printkes,  16  akd  18  Jacob  Strect,  Nkw-York. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  SOCIETY, 


18G9. 


PRESIDENT, 

HAMILTON    FISH,    LL.D. 

FIRST     VICE-PRESIDE>"r, 

THOMAS    DE     WITT,    D.D. 

SECOXD     VICE-PRESIDENT, 

GULIAN    C.    VERPLANCK,    LL.D. 

FOREIGN    CORRESPONDING     SECRETARY, 

JOHN    ROMEYX    BRODHEAD,    LL.D 

DOMESTIC     CORRESPONDING     SECRETARY, 

WILLIAM    J.    HOPPIN. 

EECORDING    SECRETARY, 

ANDREW    WARNER, 

TREASURER, 

BENJAMIN    H.    FIELD. 

LIBRARIAN,  • 

GEORGE    H.    MOORE,    LL.D. 


COMMITTEE      OF    ARRANGEMENTS 


SIXTY-FOURTH  ANNIVERSARY. 


CHARLES  P.  KIRKLAND,  WILLIAM  CHAUNCET, 

WILLIAM   T.  BLODGETT,  ANDREW   WARNER, 

GEORGE  H.  MOORE. 


ADDRESS. 


I  HAVE  the  honor  of  addressing  the  Histoiical  So- 
ciety in  the  great  Metropolis  of  the  great  Republic. 
These  simple  words  suggest  to  me  so  wide  a  range 
of  thought  that  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  do  not  dwell 
on  local  details  of  our  history  or  of  any  history.  I 
see  before  me  an  immense  Result,  and  I  would  fain 
grope  my  way  with  such  lantern  as  I  can  provide  for 
myself  towards  causes  whether  distant  or  near. 

As  I  wandered  yesterday,  almost  at  random, 
through  this  magnificent  city;  as  I  marked  the  long 
sumptuous  avenues  of  stone  and  marble  houses,  which 
seemed  to  multiply  even  while  I  looked  upon  them 
—  as  in  tropical  regions  the  strenuous,  full  vitalized 
vegetation,  with  its  gorgeous  blossoms,  rampant  vines, 
overshadowing  foliage,  expands  in  growth  almost 
beneath  the  gazer's  eye ;  as  I  saw  the  innumerable 
steamers  and  ships  which  crowd  your  wharves,  like 
moving   woods   and  shifting  palaces,  forming  an  un- 


broken  cliain  of  connection  with  every  zone  and 
clime ;  as  I  moved  tLrougli  tlie  crowded  mart  wliose 
slightest  throb  sends  a  pulsation  through  the  world ; 
as  I  felt  myself — a  casual  spectator — caught  up  and 
whirled  along,  almost  against  my  will,  on  the  im- 
petuous ra^^ids  of  this  swift  commercial  life ;  when 
I  surveyed  this  million-headed  monster  stretching 
forth  its  feelers  and  feeders,  its  long  lines  of  rail, 
river,  and  canal  into  the  far  distance,  devouring  for 
its  daily  needs  the  product  of  farm,  forest,  factory, 
and  mine  in  every  corner  of  the  globe ;  clutching 
in  its  ever-exj)anding  arras,  as  each  day  rolls  on, 
thousands  of  the  forlorn,  the  adventurous,  the  out- 
cast, and  lifting  them  out  of  misery  into  hope ;  assimi- 
latino;  all  this  discordant  material  into  its  o^vn  flesh 
and  blood  with  a  swiftness  which  suggests  an  oc- 
casional doubt  whether  such  violently  digestive 
powers  are  quite  natural  or  wholesome ;  as  I  turned 
from  these  scenes  of  excitement  to  the  stately  j^arks 
— than  which  nothing  more  luxurious  is  to  be  found 
in  older  and  imperial  cities — to  the  frequent,  splendid 
churches  of  every  sect ;  to  the  colleges,  the  libraries, 
the  institutions  of  charity,  of  administration,  of  jus- 
tice ;  as  I  looked  upon  and  listened  to  this  vast, 
resonant,  vehement  whole,  I  was  opjoressed  with  a 
single  thought — that  all  this  is  of  To-Day.     There  is 


something  at  once  startling  and  depressing  in  the 
rapidity  with  whicli  this  result  has  been  reached. 

We  talk  of  History.  No  man  can  more  highly 
appreciate  than  I  do  the  noble  labors  of  your 
Society  and  of  others  in  this  country,  for  the  pre- 
servation of  memorials  belonging  to  our  brief  but 
most  important  Past.  We  can  never  collect  too 
many  of  them,  nor  ponder  them  too  carefully,  for 
they  mark  the  era  of  a  new  civilization.  But  that 
interesting  Past  presses  so  closely  upon  our  sight, 
that  it  seems  still  a  portion  of  the  Present  ;  the 
glimmering  dawn  preceding  the  noon-tide  of  to- 
day. 

I  shall  not  be  misunderstood,  then,  if  I  say  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  human  history.  No- 
thing can  be  more  profoundly,  sadly  true.  The 
annals  of  mankind  have  never  been  written,  never 
can  be  written;  nor  would  it  be  within  human 
capacity  to  read  them  if  they  were  written.  We 
have  a  leaf  or  two  torn  from  the  great  book 
of  human  fate  as  it  flutters  in  the  storm- winds 
ever  sweeping  across  the  earth.  We  decipher 
them  as  we  best  can  with  purblind  eyes,  and  en- 
deavor to  learn  their  mystery  as  we  float  along  to 
the  abyss;  but  it  is  all  confused  babble,  hierogly- 
phics  of  Avhich   the   key   is   lost.      Consider    but    a 


moment.  The  island  on  wliicli  this  city  stands  is 
as  perfect  a  site  as  man  could  desire  for  a  great, 
commercial,  imperial  city.  Byzantium,  whicli  the 
lords  of  the  ancient  world  built  for  the  capital 
of  the  earth ;  which  the  temperate  and  vigorous 
Turk  in  the  days  of  his  stern  military  discipline 
plucked  from  the  decrepit  hands  which  held  the 
sceptre  of  Caesar  and  Constantine,  and  for  the  sue 
cession  to  whicli  the  present  lords  of  Europe  are 
wrangling ;  not  Byzantium,  nor  hundred-gated 
Thebes;  nor  London,  nor  Liverpool,  Paris,  nor  Mos- 
cow can  surpass  the  future  certainties  of  this  thir- 
teen-mile long  Manhattan, 

And  yet  it  was  Init  yesterday — for  what  are  tAVO 
centuries  and  a  half  in  the  boundless  vista  of  the 
Past  ? — that  the  Mohawk  and  the  •  Mohican  were 
tomahawking  and  scalping  each  othef  throughout 
these  regions,  and  had  been  doing  so  for  centuries ; 
when  the  whole  surface  of  this  island,  now  groaning 
under  millions  of  wealth  which  oj^press  the  imagina- 
tion, hardly  furnished  a  respectable  hun.ting-ground 
for  a  single  Sachem,  in  his  war-2:>aint  and  moccasins, 
who  imagined  himself  proprietor  of  the  soil. 

But  yesterday  Cimmerian  darkness ;  primeval  night. 
To-day,  grandeur,  luxury,  wealth,  poAver.  I  come  not 
here   to-night  to   draw  pictures  or  pour   forth  dithy- 


rambics  that  I  may  gratify  your  vanity  or  my 
own,  whether  municipal  or  national.  To  appreciate 
the  unexampled  advantages  bestowed  by  the  Omni- 
potent upon  this  favored  Kepublic,  this  youngest 
child  of  civilization,  is  rather  to  oppress  the  thought- 
ful mind  with  an  overwhelming  sense  of  responsi- 
bility ;  to  sadden  with  quick-coming  fears ;  to 
torture  with  reasonable  doubts.  The  world's  great 
hope  is  here.  The  future  of  humanity — at  least 
for  that  cycle  in  which  we  are  now  revolving — 
depends  mainly  upon  the  manner  in  which  we  deal 
with  our  great  trust. 

The  good  old  times!  Where  and  when  were 
those  good  old  times  ? 

"  All  times  when  old  are  good," 

says  Byron. 

"And  all  our  yesterdays  have  lighted  fools 
The  way  to  dusty  death," 

says  the  great  master  of  morals  and  humanity. 

But  neither  fools  nor  sages ;  neither  individuals  nor 
nations;  have  any  other  light  to  guide  them  along 
the  track  which  all  must  tread,  save  that  long  glim- 
mering vista  of  yesterdays  which  grows  so  swiftly 
fainter  and  fainter  as  the  present  fades  off  into 
the  past. 


And  I  believe  it  possible  to  discover  a  law  out 
of  all  tliis  apparently  chaotic  wliirl  and  bustle  ; 
tliis  tangled  skein  of  liunian  affairs  as  it  spins  itself 
througli  the  centuries.  That  law  is  ]3rogress — slow, 
confused,  contradictory,  but  ceaseless  development, 
intellectual  and  moral,  of  the  human  race. 

It  is  of  Human  Progress  that  I  speak  to-night. 
It  is  of  Progress  that  I  find  a  startling  result  when 
I  survey  the  spectacle  which  the  American  Present 
displays. 

This  nation  stands  on  the  point  towards  which 
other  peoples  are  moving — the  starting-point,  not 
the  goal.  It  has  put  itself — or  rather  Destiny  has 
placed  it — more  immediately  than  other  nations  in 
subordination  to  the  law  governing  all  bodies  poli- 
tical as  inexorably  as  Kepler's  law  controls  the  mo- 
tions of  the  planets. 

The  law  is  Progress ;  the  result  Democracy. 
Nearly  forty  years  ago  tlie  clear,  philosophical  mind 
of  De  Tocqueville  was  so  impressed  by  this  com- 
paratively infant  Ilepublic,  the  phenomena  of  which 
he  had  examined  witli  microscopic  minuteness  and 
with  statesman-like  breadth  of  vision,  that  he  ex- 
horted his  countrymen  and  Euroj^e  in  general  to 
accept  the  fact  that  democracy  was  the  preordained 
condition   of  the  human  race — a  condition  to  which 


the  world  was  steadily  tending — and  to  seek  hap- 
piness in  conforming  to  tlie  divine  command  instead 
of  wearing  themselves  out  in  futile  struggles  with 
the  Inevitable. 

Circumstances,  mainly  due  to  now  very  obvious 
phenomena  in  the  policy  of  this  country  to  which 
the  philosopher  did  not  pay  sufficient  heed,  have 
retarded  the  result ;  but  it  is  again  signalling  its 
approach  with  swiftly  augmenting  speed. 

Whether  it  be  a  bane  or  a  blessing,  it  is  all- 
important  for  us  to  aGcei)t  and  make  the  best  of 
it.  No  man  more  thoroughly  believes  and  rejoices 
in  the  fundamental  truth  on  which  our  system  is 
founded  than  I  do  ;  but  it  is  not  to  flatter  nor 
exult  that  I  allude  to  this  foremost  position  which 
we  occupy ;  not  entirely  through  our  merits  but 
mainly  from  the  bounty  of  heaven. 

Sydney  Smith  once  alluded,  if  I  remember  right- 
ly, to  a  person  who  allowed  himself  to  speak  disre- 
spectfully of  the  equator.  I  have  a  strong  objection 
to  be  suspected  of  flattering  the  equator.  Yet  were 
it  not  for  that  little  angle  of  23°,  2f,  2G'',  which 
it  is  good  enough  to  make  with  the  plane  of  the 
ecliptic,  the  history  of  this  earth  and  of  "  all  which 
it  inherit "  would  have  been  essentially  modified, 
even  if  it  had  not  been    altogether  a  blank. 


8 


"  Some  say  he  bid  his  angels  turn  askance 
The  poles  of  eartli  twice  ten  degrees  and  more 
From  the  sun's  axle ;    they  with  labor  pushed 
Oblique  the  central  globe     .... 

to  bring  in  change 

Of  seasons  to  each  clime,  else  had  the  spring 
Perpetual  smiled  on  earth  with  verdant  flowers 
Equal  in  days  and  nights,  except  to  those 
Beyond  the  polar  circles." 

Out  of  tlie  obliquity  of  the  equator  lias  come 
fortli  our  civilization.  It  was  long  ago  observed 
by  one  of  tlie  most  tlioughtful  writers  that  ever 
dealt  with  human  history,  John  von  Herder,  that 
it  was  to  the  gradual  shading  away  of  zones  and 
alternation  of  seasons  that  the  vigor  and  variety  of 
mankind  were  attributaljle.  Nothing  good  or  great 
could  ever  come  out  of  the  eternal  spring  or  mid- 
summer of  the  tropics,  nor  from  the  thick-ribbed 
winter  of  tlie  poles.  From  the  temperate  zone,  with 
its  healthful  and  stimulating  succession  of  seasons, 
have  come  civilization  and  progress.* 

But  for  this  graceful  inclination  of  our  mother 
earth  towards  the  sun  as  she  revolves  about  that 
source  of  light  and  life — a  dip  which  great  Jupiter 
standing  perpendicular  on  his  plane  disdains  to  make, 

*  See  Idecn  znr  GescMclde  dcr  Menschlieit.     Iter  Thcil,  Ites  Buch,  S.  iv. 
Herder's  Siimmtliche  Wcrke,  28ter  Band. 


and  doubtless  causes  liis  cliildren  to  suffer  wofully 
ill  consequence  —  who  can  tell  whether  our  places 
might  not  have  been  occupied  by  wandering  savages 
or  broods  of  speechless  rej^tiles? 

It  is  certainly  no  merit  of  ours,  however,  that 
the  earth  makes  this  blessed  angle,  and  as  earth- 
men  we  may  gratefully  recognize  our  superiority  to 
Jupiterians  without  being  braggarts.  And  as  Ameri- 
cans we  have  the  right  to  rejoice — but  with  trembling 
— at  the  more  fortunate  conditions  in  which  our  po- 
litical orbit  has  been  traced  around  that  great  central 
fact  towards  which  all  civilized  bodies  must  turn. 

I  have  never  remarked,  moreover,  that  the  nations 
,  by  whom  our  tendency  to  boastfulness  is  sometimes 
rebuked  are  absolutely  overwhelmed  with  bashful- 
ness  themselves,  or  ready  to  sink  into  the  earth 
with  shame  when  alluding  to  their  own  advan- 
tao-es  or  achievements.  Self-assertion  is  the  na- 
tural  althouo:h  not  ens-ao-ino;  characteristic  of  vis^or- 
ous  and  progressive  peoples.  It  is  sometimes  as 
well  to  appreciate  as  to  despise  in  national  self- 
contemplation.  And  certainly  we  are  never  likely 
to  pine  for  want  of  sharj)  criticism  on  this  or  the 
other  side  of  the  water  ;  for  if  ever  nation  sur- 
vived perpetual  vivisection,  especially  during  the 
last  half-dozen  years,  and  grew  fat  and  strong   upon 


10 

it,  tliat  nation  is  America.  Not  a  quivering  muscle, 
not  a  thrilling  nerve,  even  in  moments  of  tension  and 
agony,  but  has  been  laid  bare  before  the  world  and 
serenely  lectured  upon  by  tlie  learned  doctors  of 
Privilege;  but  when  the  long  sigh  of  relief  had 
been  drawn  from  the  spectators  at  the  demonstrated 
death  of  Democracy,  behold  the  monster  on  its  feet 
again  and  very  much  more  alive  than  ever. 

There  is  no  reason  then  why  we  should  shrink 
from  our  opinions,  even  if  not  entirely  unfavorable 
to  our  national  character  or  our  national  hopes.  I 
honor  the  men  of  opinions  and  of  courage  to  pro- 
claim them,  and  I  deprecate  neither  the  wrath  nor  the 
lamentations  of  the  prophets  of  evil  on  either  side 
the  ocean.  Men  of  genius  and  virtue  have  uttered 
boding  shrieks  from  time  to  time  and  have  done 
us  excellent  service.  I  trust  sincerely  that  their 
voices  may  never  grow  too  hoarse  to  croak  for 
our  good.  And  if  I  speak  hopefully,  even  in  regions 
where  Mammon  is  supposed  to  be  not  entirely  with- 
out votaries, 

"  Mammon,  the  least  erected  spirit  that  fell 
From  Heaven," 

it  is  because  I  know  that  the  pursuit  of  riches  in 
this  country,  maddening  and  often  demoralizing 
though  it  be,  has  strengthened  the   energies   of  the 


11 

land,  and  tliat  wealth  has  been  poured  forth  like 
water  at  all  times  and  seasons,  whenever  needed  to 
save  a  nation,  to  encourage  enterprise,  relieve  dis- 
tress, or  foster  Science  and  Art.  Out  of  the  vast 
reservoir  the  outflow  has  heen  constant.  If  Midas 
has  hathed  in  our  Pactolus  and  Croesus  incrusted 
himself  all  over  in  its  golden  waters,  we  know  too 
that  its  perennial  streams  have  fertilized  the  broadest 
prairies  and  the  lowest  depths  of  Humanity. 

I  asked  where  and  when  were  the  good  old  times  ? 
This  earth  of  ours  has  been  spinning  about  in  space, 
great  philosophers  tell  us,  some  few  hundred  millions 
of  years.  We  are  not  very  familiar  with  our  prede- 
cessors on  this  continent.  For  the  present,  the  oldest 
inhabitant  must  be  represented  here  by  the  man  of 
Natchez,  whose  bones  were  unearthed  not  long  ago 
under  the  Mississippi  bluffs  in  strata  which  were  said 
to  argue  him  to  be  at  least  one  hundred  thousand 
years  old.  Yet  he  is  a  mere  modern,  a  parvenu  on 
this  planet,  if  we  are  to  trust  illustrious  teachers  of 
science,  compared  with  the  men  whose  bones  and 
whose  implements  have  been  found  in  high  moun- 
tain valleys  and  gravel-pits  of  Europe;  while  these 
again  are  thought  by  the  same  authorities  to  be 
descendants  of  races  which  flourished  many  year- 
thousands   before,   and  whose   relics   Science   is   con- 


12 

fidently  expecting  to  discover^  althougli  the   icy  sea 
liad  once  engulfed  them  and  their  dwelling-places. 

We  of  to-day  have  no  filial  interest  in  the  man  of 
Natchez.  He  was  no  ancestor  of  ours,  nor  have  he 
and  his  descendants  left  traces  along  the  dreary 
track  of  their  existence  to  induce  a  desire  to  claim 
relationship  with  them. 

We  are  Americans — but  yesterday  we  were  Euro- 
peans— Netherlanders,  Saxons,  Normans,  Swabians, 
Celts— and  the  day  before  yesterday,  Asiatics,  Mon- 
golians, what  you  will.  Go  to  the  ancestral  home 
of  many  of  us.  Strike  into  the  busy  heart  of 
London  with  pick-axe  and  spade.  Sink  a  shaft  in 
the  central  ganglion  of  confused  and  thickly-crammed 
streets  about  Tower  Hill  and  Thames  Street,  along 
which  the  ever  accumulating  mass  of  traffic  has  been 
rolling  for  a  dozen  centuries.  And  if  you  go  deep 
enough,  and  excavate  widely  enough,  you  will  find 
beautiful  statues,  tesselated  pavements,  mosaic  pic- 
tures, pagan  shrines — relics  of  that  puissant  Roman 
people  who  governed  what  they  thought  the  world, 
when  Britons  were  painted  savages.  Yet  they  never 
dreamed  of  the  existence  of  that  great  American  conti- 
nent where  the  man  of  Natchez  and  his  race  had  been 
roaming  hundreds  of  year-thousands  before,  but  never 
producing  temples  nor  pictures,  statues  nor  fountains. 


13 

For  what  are  Koman  antiquities  in  England  or 
anywhere  else  ?  Many  of  ns  trace  back  our  ancestry 
to  Beclfordsliire  and  Suffolk,  and  are  never  weary  of 
tracking  tlie  footsteps  of  our  pilgrim  fathers  in  quiet 
villages  and  peaceful  English  scenery  of  two  or 
three  hundred  years  ago.  Go  back  two  or  three 
hundred  thousand  years,  and  saunter  on  the  margin 
of  the  Ouse,  or  through  the  primitive  valleys  of 
Bedford,  and  find  your  ancestors,  as  great  naturalists 
inform  us  you  will,  contemporaries  and  companions 
of  the  mammoth  and  the  woolly  rhinoceros,  the  lion 
and  the  hyena."" 

Yet  Ave  talk  of  history  because  we  can  grope  back- 
wards dimly  and  vaguely  for  a  matter  of  thirty 
centuries,  while  those  rude  forefathers  of  ours  have 
faded  for  ever  from  our  chronicles. 

Men  through  all  ages — other  than  those  accepting 
the  revelations  of  Holy  Writ — have  solaced  or  dis- 
tressed themselves  with  shadowy  or  whimsical  fancies 
of  a  great  beginning  of  tlie  Universe  and  of  them- 
selves ;  but  perhaps  they  had  better  pause  in  their 
theorizino;  until  the  modern  dauntless  investiorators 
shall  find  in  full  fruition  of  their  hopes,  among  the 
fossils    of    the    pre-glacial    period,    some    connecting 

*  Sir  Charles  Lyell.      Geological  Fc'ulences  of  the  xintiquity  of  Man. 
2d  edition.     Murray,  1863.     Pages  3V5-376. 


14 

antLropo-simial  links,  some  precious  relics  of  the 
ancient  ancestral  ape,  and 

"  Madly  play  with   that  great  kinsman's  bone 
As  with  a   ckib," 

to  smite  all  other  theories  to  the  earth.  But  even 
then  we  shall  probably  arrive  at  the  same  conclusion 
with  the  venerable  Ephraim  Jenkinson,  in  the  "  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,"  who  sold  Moses  a  gross  of  green  spec- 
tacles with  copper  rims,  and  told  him  at  the  same 
time  "  that  the  cosmogony  or  creation  of  the  world 
had  puzzled  the  philosophers  of  all  ages." 

One  thing  is  certain.  Man  is  here.  And  another 
thing  is  equally  certain :  he  has  arrived  at  his  present 
condition  through  a  long  series  of  improvements  and 
developments.  Placed  on  "  this  isthmus  of  a  middle 
state,"  between  two  eternities,  he  looks  backward  with  a 
curiosity  half  exultant,  half  loathing,  and  forward  with 
a  hope  which  is  often  akin  to  despair.  To  be  created 
at  once  in  likeness  to  the  Omnipotent  and  to  a  fantastic 
brute ;  to  be  compounded  thus  of  the  l)estial  and  the 
angelic,  alternately  dragged  upward  and  do\vnward  b}' 
conflicting  forces,  presses  upon  us  the  conviction,  even 
without  divine  revelation,  that  this  world  is  a  place  of 
trial  and  of  j)rogress  towards  some  higher  spliere. 

But  let  the  gorilla  stand  erect  in  frightful  carica- 
ture of  humanity.     Weigh  his  brain  and  a  Hottentot's 


15 

together  in  the  same  balance,  if  you  choose,  and  find 
less  difference  between  the  two  than  between  Hanni- 
bal's and  a  more  southern  African's.  Until  you  can 
find  a  dumb  animal  endowed  with  the  relio-ious 
faculty;  who  worships  the  Eternal  Father  on  his 
knees;  who  has  treasured  in  his  heart  the  liojie  of 
an  immortal  future ;  who  "  looks  before  and  after,  and 
pines  for  what  is  not ;"  you  may  be  sure  that  the 
interval  between  Man  and  the  ans-els  will  be  crossed 
at  a  single  leap  sooner  than  the  infinite  sj^ace  be- 
tween the  brute  and  Man  will  be  diminished  by  a 
hair's-breadth.  All  the  inconceivable  time  since  pri- 
meval Man  before  the  glacial  flood  is  but  an  hour's 
span  compared  to  that  wliich  the  brute  must  tra- 
verse before  he  can  crawl  even  to  the  threshold  of 
humanity.  Nothing  can  betoken  a  weaker  faith  in 
Omnipotent  love  than  to  "  sag  with  doubt "  before 
the  grand  generalizations  of  science,  for  fear  of  for- 
feiting the  grasp  on  immortality.  If  to  survey  the 
enormous  progress  already  made  does  not  encourage 
fiith  in  that  eternal  law,  I  know  not  of  what  element 
hope  can  be  compounded. 

There  is  somethinsf  in  man  alone  wliich  has  weisrhed 
the  heavenly  bodies,  measured  their  inconceivable  dis- 
tances, marked  the  spot  where  lost  worlds  after  year- 
thousands   must   reappear,   prescribed   the   course   in 


16 

wliicb.  tlie  planets  wheel,  expounded  tlie  laws  whieli 
the  universe  obeys ;  something  which  lias  guided 
the  almost  divine  iinger  of  the  sculptor,  the  pencil 
of  the  painter  to  create  visions  more  beautiful  than 
Nature's  self  has  revealed ;  something  which  has  in- 
spired the  poet  to  raise  his  less  gifted  brethren  into 
spheres  of  thought  and  emotion  far  above  the  visible 
world ;  something  which  has  produced  from  shape- 
less matter  the  Grecian  temple,  the  Gothic  cathedral, 
the  Pacific  Railroad;  something  which  has  nerved 
heroes  to  despise  luxury  and  welcome  death  in  the 
sacred  cause  of  country ;  something  which  ties  the 
great  sailor  to  the  main-top,  above  the  smoke  of  the 
conflict,  that  he  may  control  his  fleet  and  guide  the 
battle,  nor  fall,  even  though  he  die,  till  victory 
is  won ;  something  which  chains  the  great  soldier, 
despite  of  danger,  oj^position,  or  censure,  to  one  line, 
even  if  it  takes  all  summer,  ay,  and  all  winter  too, 
when  Duty  commands ;  something  which  has  enabled 
the  scientific  adventurer  to  confront  for  years,  alone 
and  almost  forgotten,  the  jDerils  of  torrid,  l)arbarous 
Africa,  or  the  barriers  which  guard  the  frozen  mys- 
teries of  the  Pole;  something  which  has  sustained 
thousands  of  obscure  men  and  feeble  women,  as  they 
were  consuming  by  slow  fire  at  the  stake,  when  a 
word    against    what    they    believed    religious    truth 


17 

would  have  saved  tliem.  So  long  as  liistory  gamers 
such  j^roofs  of  progress  out  of  the  lower  depths, 
Man  needs  not  to  tremble  lest  the  angelic  part  of 
him  should  be  imperilled  by  his  likeness  to  the 
brute. 

Language  makes  Man.  The  beast  can  chatter, 
roar,  or  bellow,  but  man  cau  speak.  The  child 
talks  in  fragments,  and  earlier  languages  are 
monosyllabic.  A  Chinese  Dr.  Johnson  would  be 
impossible.  He  would  perish  for  want  of  poly- 
syllables. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  tower  of  Babel,  we 
should  have  been  sj^ared  much  superfluous  trouble ; 
for  although  we  are  all  sj^eaking  very  choice  Aryan 
at  bottom,  Ave  find  it  difficult  to  converse  fluent- 
ly with  each  other  in  that  tongue,  or  even  in  the 
more  modern  Sanscrit,  which  we  are  told  by  great 
scholars — no  doubt  with  accuracy — is  essentially 
English,  French,  German,  or  Greek. 

It  is  also  an  awful  thought  that  languages  per- 
haps cannot  live  unless  they  are  stone  dead.  Cicero 
or  Demosthenes  might  take  his  stand  on  any  plat- 
form to-day  and  be  reported  in  the  papers  for  a 
classically  educated  public;  but  should  King  Alfred 
come  from  his  toml),  like  the  elder  Hamlet,  to  re- 
veal important  secrets,  he  would  find  no  living  soul, 


18 

save  a  professor  or  two,  tliroiigliout  his  ancient 
realms,  to  comprehend  his  warnings. 

The  great  German  of  all,  from  whom  the  race  is 
fancied  to  derive  its  name — Herman,  Arminius,  War- 
Man,  Ger-Man — the  patriot  who  smote  Varus  in  the 
Frisian  sw^amps,  and  caused  Augustus  to  shrielc 
through  his  marble  halls  for  his  legions,  would  l^e 
unintelligible  to  his  Fatherland  should  he  come 
forth  to  make  a  sj^eech  on  the  Schleswig-Holstein 
question,  to  the  National,  Patriotic,  German  Union 
of  to-day.* 

We  celebrated  Shakespeare's  third  century  four 
years  ago.  Let  another  half  a  dozen  centuries  go 
l)y,  and  perhaps  there  will  be  none  to  philoso- 
phize with  Hamlet,  or  weep  over  the  sorrows  of 
Lear.  Shakespeare  himself  may  l^ecome  as  mythical 
as  either  of  those  princes  whom  he  seems  to  have 
endowed  with  immortality,  and  some  future  Wolf 
may  divide  him  into  a  score  of  ballad-mongers.  It 
is  a  dreary  possibility,  at  least,  that  unless  the  An- 
glo-Saxon race  dies  out  after  a  few  centuries,  the 
accretions  and  transmutations  of  language  may  make 
those  wonderful  dramas  as  obsolete  as  the  odes  of 
the  Kymri,  or  the  lays  of  Llewellyn. 

*  See  Lyell.     Antiquity  of  Man.     Chap,  xxiii.  pp.  454-470.         f  Ibid. 


19 


If  a  Somersetsliire  peasant  needs  but  three  liun- 
dred  words  out  of  the  hundred  and  fifty  million 
now  perhaps  in  use  on  this  planet,  how  much  of 
human  vocabulary  can  be  saved  by  poets,  philoso- 
phers and  men  of  business  from  desuetude,  as  Time 
rolls  remorselessly  away  ? 

Man,  as  far  back  as  we  know  or  imagine  him, 
could  speak,  but  it  was  long  before  he  learned  his 
letters,  without  which  accomplishment  erudition  is 
apt  to  be  limited.  At  last  schoolmaster  Cadmus 
came  out  of  the  East— as  is  the  habit  of  school- 
masters— and  brought  sixteen  counters  in  his  pocket, 
which  he  had  picked  up  among  the  Pelasgians. 

The  schoolmaster  being  abroad  at  last,  progress 
became  rapid  enough.  For  in  truth  what  human 
invention  can  compare  with  that  of  the  Alphabet? 
It  is  no  wonder  that  Cadmus  Avas  pronounced  not 
only  a  king's  son,  but  allied  to  the  immortals. 
"  Founders  of  states  and  lawgivers,"  says  Lord 
Bacon,  "  were  honored  with  the  titles  of  demigods ; 
but  inventors  were  ever  consecrated  among  the  gods 
themselves."  And  if  heathen  mythology  still  pre- 
vailed, what  a  Pantheon  we  should  have  in  the 
Patent    Office    at  Washington ! 

After  the  almost  infinite  space  already  traversed 
by  Mankind,  at  last  something  like  Tradition,  Record, 


20 

Monumental  History  began.  Tlie  civilization  of 
Egypt  is  a  parenthesis  between  two  barbarisms ;  the 
present  wandering  tribes  of  the  Delta  having  inherit- 
ed no  more  culture  from  the  Pharaohs  and  the  Pto- 
lemies than  did  those  royal  lines  from  the  savages 
who  preceded  them, 

And  contemporaneous  with  the  epoch  of  Egyptian 
and  Hebrew  grandeur  there  was  a  siege — so  men 
say — of  a  city  in  Asia  Minor,  and  it  chanced  that 
a  blind  man,  if  lie  was  a  man  and  was  blind,  sang 
some  songs  about  it.  Wonderful  power  of  poetic 
genius!  Tlie  leading  personages  in  that  war,  their 
passions  and  sentiments,  the  minute  details  of  their 
costume,  the  color  of  their  hair  and  eyes,  the  names 
of  their  soldiers  and  their  shi})s,  their  habits  of 
social  life,  the  scenery  surrounding  them,  the  daily 
military  and  household  events  of  that  insignificant 
quarrel,  are  almost  as  familiar  in  this  remote  liemi- 
sphere  to-day  as  the  siege  of  Vicksburg,  with  all  its 
heroic,  picturesque,  and  passionate  circumstance,  and 
its  momentous  consequences  for  all  time. 

And  out  of  the  confusion  of  songs,  monuments, 
and  records,  there  comes  at  last  a  glimmer  of  chrono- 
logy. There  was  once  a  cook  in  Athens.  Whether 
he  w\as  skilful  or  not  in  the  kitchen  is  unknown, 
but   he   was   swift  of  foot.      He   ran    a   race  at  the 


21 

Olymj^ic  Games;  liis  name  was  tlie  first  to  be  re- 
corded as  victor  on  the  arcliives  of  tliose  festivals ;  and 
accordingly  the  subsequent  history  of  Gi-eece,  with  all 
her  heroes,  poets,  sages,  is  registered  from  the  Olym- 
piad in  which  Coroebus  won  his  race.  Truly,  says  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  "  the  iniquity  of  oblivion  blindly 
scattereth  her  poppies,  and  deals  wdth  the  memories 
of  men  without  regard  to  merit  of  jierpetuity." 

Strangely  enough,  too,  the  date  of  this  first  regis- 
tered 01ym2:)iad  has  a  sacred  but  familiar  sound  in 
our  ears.  It  was  776  before  Christ  ;  1776  years 
after  Christ  another  epoch  was  established,  from 
which  this  great  Republic  dates  its  records;  a  day 
on  which  equal  rights  were  j)roclaimed  as  the  heri- 
tage of  mankind ;  a  nobler  era  for  the  world  than 
any  that  cooks  or  racers  are  ever  likely  to  establish. 

At  exactly  the  same  period  with  Corcebus — as 
chronoloo-ists  have  settled  it  amono;  themselves — 
there  was  a  certain  she-wolf  in  an  Italian  swamp, 
with  a  pair  of  j^romising  foster-children ;  and,  as  we 
all  have  read  in  the  story-books,  the  foster-children 
founded  a  city,  which  has  had  much  influence  for 
good  and  evil  upon  the  cause  of  human  progress. 

The  orbit  of  civilization — so  far  as  our  perishing 
records  enable  us  to  trace  it — seems  preordained 
from  East  to  West.     China,  India,  Palestine,  Egypt, 


22 

Greece,  Rome,  are  successively  lighted  up  as  tlie 
majestic  orb  of  day  moves  over  them ;  aud  as  lie  ad- 
vances still  further  through  his  storied  and  mysterious 
zodiac,  we  behold  the  shadows  of  evening  as  surely 
falling  on  the  lands  which  he  leaves  behind  him. 
Religion,  poetry,  aesthetic  art,  have  already  ennobled 
the  progress  of  Man.  What  would  the  world  have 
been  without  Palestine  ?  What  present  idea  of  human 
civilization  would  be  possible  without  the  poetry, 
sculpture,  architecture,  the  magnificent  drama,  the  sub- 
tle, lofty,  almost  divine  philosophy  of  Greece  ;  without 
the  imperious  and  cruel  nationalism,  the  all-surpass- 
ing military  art,  the  colossal  self-esteem,  the  cynic  ma- 
terialism, the  massive,  sharply-chiselled  j  uris2:)rudence, 
which  made  Rome  the  mistress  of   the  world? 

Dead  Athens  shines  there  for  ever — not  a  constel- 
lation, but  a  whole  universe  of  lustre — with  the 
milky  way  of  her  exquisite,  half  nebulous  fables; 
with  the  pure  starry  liglit  of  her  fixed  and  un- 
changing truth — illuminating  vast  sj^aces  of  ol)SCur- 
ity  before  and  since  her  brief  mortal  existence. 

Rome,  both  in  ]wv  military  and  legal  glor\',  and  in 
her  shameful  and  cr.'ipulous  decre])itude,  remains  a  per- 
petual memory  to  encourage  human  progress,  and  to 
warn  from  the  dangers  of  luxury,  ambition,  and  in- 
effable disdain  of  hunum  rights  by  which  she  justly 
perished. 


23 

And  tlien  came  tlie  wandering  of  the  nations; 
tlie  northern  deluge.  Eome  sank  miserably  beneath 
the  glacial  flood,  which  like  that  in  early  geologi- 
cal ages,  had  become  necessary  in  tlie  grand  scheme 
of  civilization.  Surely  the  Koman  world  had  need 
of  submergence  and  of  ice.  And  at  last  as  the  del- 
uge subsided,  Germany  had  conquered  Eome,  and 
the  new  civilization  began.  But  a  low  civilization 
at  best.  The  passionate  rising  for  freedom,  the 
great  mutiny  against  Eome,  resulted  only  in  new 
and  heterogeneous  forms  of  despotism.  Man  made 
progress  still,  for  lie  had  been  born  again  out  of 
death  into  life,  but  the  People  did  not  exist,  nor 
were  there  indications  of  its  birth.  Europe  became 
a  camp  on  conquered  territory.  The  iron-clad 
man  on  horseback  divided  the  ^vliole  soil  among 
his  captains  and  corporals ;  the  multitudes  were 
throttled  and  made  to  ^vear  the  collar  of  serfdom, 
marked  with  their  owners'  names ;  land-robbers  and 
filibusters  became  kings  and  princes  by  grace  of 
God — which  meant  the  steel-gloved  fist ;  the  feudal 
system  was  established,  and  poetry,  romance,  gro- 
velling legend  and  sycophantic  chronicle  have  spread 
a  halo  around  the  perpetual  crime  even  unto  our 
own  days.  Do  what  you  will,  even  in  this  dis- 
tant   land    and   age,    you    can    not   entirely    remove. 


24 

as  yet,  tlie  tenacious  fil^res  from  that  foreign  root 
wliicli  are  twisted  into  our  law,  Listory,  literature, 
into    our   social   and    political   being. 

Man  still  reeled  on — falling,  rising  again,  stagger- 
ing forward  witli  hue  and  cry  at  his  heels  —  a 
wounded  felon  daring  to  escape  from  the  prison 
to  which  grace  of  God  had  inexorably  doomed 
him.  And  still  there  was  progress.  Besides  the 
sword,  two  other  instruments  grew  every  day  more 
potent — the   pen   and   the   purse. 

The  power  of  the  pen  soon  created  a  stupendous 
monojioly.  Clerks  obtained  j)i"ivnlege  of  murder  be- 
cause of  their  learning;  a  Norman  king  gloried  in 
the  appellation  of  "fine  clerk"  because  he  could  spell ; 
the  sons  of  serfs  and  washerwomen  became  high 
pontiffs,  put  their  feet  on  the  neck  of  emperors, 
thi'ough  the  might  of  education,  and  appalled  the 
souls  of  tyrants  w^ith  their  weird  anathemas.  Na- 
turally, the  priests  kej^t  the  talisman  of  learning 
to  themselves.  How  should  education  help  them 
to  power  and  pelf  if  the  people  could  participate 
in  the  mystic  spell  ?  The  icy  Dead-liand  of  the 
Church,  ever  extended,  was  filled  to  overflowing 
by  tremljling  baron  and  superstitious  hind.  The 
fairest  valleys,  the  richest  plains,  the  noblest  forests 
of  Europe  were  clutclied  by  the  comfortable  friars 
in    perpetual   mortmain. 


25 


But   there   Avas   anotlier    power   steadily   aiigment- 

ino- tlie   magic   purse    of  Fortuuatus  with  its   clink 

of  petennial  gold.  Commerce  changed  clusters  of 
hovels,  cowering  for  protection  under  feudal  castles, 
into  powerful  cities.  Burghers  wrested  or  purchased 
liberties  from  their  lords  and  masters.  And  at  last 
there  were  leagues  of  municipalities,  chains  of  com- 
mercial republics  in  all  but  name,  stretched  across 
Christendom,  and  tripping  up  tyranny  at  every  turn. 
Liberties  in  the  plural,  not  liberty  of  man  ;  con- 
cessions to  corporations  from  the  iron  fist,  from 
grace  of  God,  in  exchange  for  coin  or  in  repara- 
tion  of  buffets. 

And  still  Man  struggled  on.  An  experimenting 
friar,  fond  of  chemistry,  in  one  corner  of  Europe,  put 
nitre,  sulphur,  and  charcoal  together;  a  sexton  or 
doctor,  in  another  obscure  nook,  carved  letters  on 
blocks  of  wood  ;  and  lo !  there  were  explosions 
shaking  the  solid  earth,  and  causing  the  iron-clad 
man   on   horseback   to   reel  in   his   saddle. 

It  was  no  wonder  that  Dr.  Faustus  was  supposed 
to  have  sold  his  soul  to  the  fiend.  Whence  but 
from  devilish  alliance  could  he  have  derived  such 
power   to   strike   down   grace   of  God  ? 

The  military  encampment  had  secured  all  ter- 
ritory  to    the   crown  ;     the    pen    had    given   control 


2G 

of  the  human  mind  to  the  Chm"ch  ;  floating  capital 
was  locked  up  in  the  strong-box  of  corporations. 
Man  had  made  progress,  but  everywhere  the  People 
was  submerged;  pursuing  its  monotonous  and  dark- 
ened course,  destined  to  gloomy  servitude  almost 
beneath  the  reach  of  hope  ;  with  encampments, 
establishments,  corporations,  piled  upon  it  mountains 
high. 

But  Sacerdotalism,  political  Priesthood,  reigned  too 
long  and  went  too  far.  Auction  sales  of  indul- 
gences, for  every  j^o^^ible  and  imaginable  crime, 
had  been  too  audacious ;  Christian  temples  had 
gro\vn  too  gorgeous  on  the  proceeds  of  remitted 
sin ;  the  balefid  splendor  which  had  grown  out 
of  the  putrescence  of  the  traffic  had  become 
too  noisome  an  exhalation  for  the  human  mind  to 
endure. 

There  was  a  reformation.  But  it  was  only  a  leap 
into  the  liglit.  It  was  not  a  mere  difference  of 
creed  and  dogma.  Good  Catholics  and  virtuous 
men  were  as  much  offended  at  heart  l)y  Borgianism, 
as  Luther  or  Calvin  had  been.  It  was  not  an  up- 
rising against  the  Church,  1)ut  against  the  prostitu- 
tion of  the  Cliurch  to  temporal  purposes.  Much 
good  was  accomj)lished,  both  in  the  ancient  and 
tlie  new  establishments,  but  freedom  of  religion  was 


27 

scarcely  dreamed  of;  mutual  toleration  was  account- 
ed a  crime.  Priesthood  was  triumphant  after 
all,  for  Church  and  State  maintained  their  incestuous 
union.  The  people  obtained  new  creeds  if  their 
masters  professed  one,  or  remained  with  the  ball 
and  chain  of  ancient  dogma  rivetted  to  their  limbs, 
if  their   masters   remained   faithful   to   that. 

Whoever  governs  you,  his  religion  shall  be  yours ! 
Cujus  regio^  ejus  religio.  Were  ever  more  blasphe- 
mous and  insulting  words  hurled  in  the  face  of 
mankind  ? 

Yet  this  was  accepted  as  the  net  result  of  the 
Reformation,  so  far  as  priests  and  princes  could 
settle  the  account.  This  was  the  ins-euious  com- 
promise  by  which  it  was  thought  possible  to  re- 
move thje  troublesome  question  of  religion  for  ever 
from    the    sphere   of  politics. 

Cujus  regio^  ejus  religio!  Could  it  be  doul)ted 
that  the  ancient  Church  would  seize  this  weapon 
from  the  Protestant  hands  which  had  forged  it,  and 
smite  every  people  with  it  that  stniggled  for  eman- 
cipation? Not  freedom  of  religion,  but  freedom  of 
princes  to  prescribe  religion  to  their  slaves — iov  this 
so  many  tens  of  thousands  had  died  on  the  battle- 
field, or  been   bunied,   and  buried  alive  ! 

And    it   was    sincerely  hoped    and    believed    that 


28 

humanity  could  be  thus  remanded  to  its  dungeon, 
buifeted,  flouted,  jeered  out  of  its  rights,  and  the 
padlock  placed  for  ever  on  the  immortal  mind. 
And  truly  to  those  Avho  reckon  history  by  the  year, 
who  find  the  record  of  man's  progress  only  in 
political  annals,  how  dreary  must  seem  our  fate ! 
What  can  be  more  monotonous  than  the  dull  cata- 
logue of  kings,  princes,  and  priestly  or  courtly  poli- 
ticians, with  their  palace  revolutions,  insipid  cere- 
monials, and  ghastly  chronicles  of  murderous  wars 
for  i^etty  questions,  as  whether  Charles  or  Ferdinand, 
Louis  or  Peter,  shall  sit  on  this  throne,  restore  that 
province,  or  esj)ouse  this  princess? 

Unless  w^e  hold  fost  to  the  fact,  tliat  in  human 
as  in  physical  history,  Nature  is  ever  patiently  pro- 
ducing her  effects  through  long  lapses  of  time,  l)y 
causes  which  have  been  in  operation  since  the  be- 
ginning, History  is  but  another  word  for  despair. 
But  history  is  never  hysterical,  never  j^roceeds  l)y 
catastrophes  and  cataclysms ;  and  it  is  only  by  I'e- 
membering  this  that  Ave  can  comprehend  its  higher 
meaning. 

To  discover  the  great  intellectual  law  prescribed 
by  the  Creator  is  tlie  science  of  history.  To  induce 
mankind  to  conform  to  that  law  is  tlie  science  of 
politics. 


29 

The  great  mutiny  against  sacerdotal  Rome,  which 
we  call  the  Keformation,  even  like  the  universal 
revolt  against  imperial  Kome  a  thousand  years  be- 
fore, which  we  call  the  wandering  of  the  nations, 
had  been  balked  of  its  loo-ical   result. 

The  first  mutiny  established  the  Feudal  system 
over  the  people ;  the  second  strengthened  Church 
and  military  government  by  confirming  instead  of 
dissolving  the  connection  between  the  two. 

But  now  another  talisman  was  to  change  the  face 
of  the  world ;  for  the  great  discoveries  are  apt  to 
leap  from  the  highly  electrified  brain  of  Man  at 
identical  epochs.  Christojjher  Columbus,  confiding 
in  his  own  stout  heart  and  the  mariner's  compass, 
sailed  forth  on  unknown  seas,  and  behold  America ! 
Here  was  the  chief  event  thus  far  recorded  in  hu- 
man progress,  as  Time,  in  its  deliberate  patience,  was 
one    day   to   prove. 

Speech,  the  Alphabet,  Mount  Sinai,  Egypt,  Greece, 
Rome,  Nazareth,  the  wandering  of  the  nations,  the 
feudal  system.  Magna  Cliarta,  gunpowder,  printing, 
the  Reformation,  the  mariner's  compass,  America — 
here  are  some  of  the  great  landmarks  of  human 
motion. 

As  we  pause  for  a  moment's  rest,  after  our  raj^id 
sweep   through   the  eons  and  the  centuries,  have  we 


30 

not  the  riglit  to  record  proof  of  man's  progress 
since  tlie  days  of  tlie  rhinoceros-eaters  of  Bedford- 
shire,   of   tlie  man  of  Natchez  ? 

And  for  details  and  detached  scenes  in  the  gene- 
ral phantasmagoria,  which  has  been  ever  shifting 
before  us,  we  may  seek  for  illustration,  instruction, 
or  comfort,  in  any  age  or  Land  where  authentic 
record  can  be  found.  We  may  take  a  calm  sur- 
vey of  passionate,  democratic  Greece  in  her  great 
civil  war  through  the  terse,  judicial  narrative  of 
Thucydides ;  we  may  learn  to  loathe  despotism  in  that 
marvellous  portrait-gallery  of  crime  w^hich  the  som- 
l)re  and  terrible  Tacitus  has  bequeathed ;  we  may 
cross  the  yawning  abysses  and  dreary  deserts  which 
lie  between  two  civilizations  over  that  stately  via- 
duct of  a  thousand  arches  w^hich  the  great  hand 
of  Gibbon  has  constructed ;  w^e  may  penetrate  to  the 
inmost  political  and  social  heart  of  England,  during 
a  period  of  nine  years,  by  help  of  the  magic  wand 
of  Macaulay;  we  may  linger  in  the  stately  portico 
to  the  unlniilt  dome  which  the  daring  genius  of 
Buckle  consumed  his  life  in  devising ;  we  may  yield 
to  the  sweet  fascinations  wdiich  ever  dwell  in  the 
picturesque  i:>ages  of  Prescott ;  avc  may  investigate 
rules,  apply  and  ponder  examples;  but  the  detail  of 
history  is  essentially  a  blank,  and  nothing  could  be 


31 

more   clisoial   tlian   its    pursuit   unless   tlie   mind   be 
filled  by  a  broad  view  of  its  general  scheme. 

But  wbat  concerns  us  most  nearly  at  present  is  the 
actual  civilization  of  Europe  and  America.  Europe 
and  America — twin  sisters — the  one  long  hidden  in 
entranced  sleep  within  ^^I'ii^^val  forests,  while  the 
other  was  slowly  groping  its  way  along  the  path 
of  j^rogress  ;  yet  both  indissolubly  connected  by 
an   ever   palpitating   bond. 

In  the  fulness  of  time,  after  so  many  errors, 
crimes,  and  disappointments,  civilization  seemed  to 
find  a  fresh  field  for  its  endeavors,  as  the  discovery 
of  this   continent   revealed   a  virgin   world. 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  a  more  fortunate 
position  than  that  occuj^ied  by  this  Republic.  Na- 
ture has  done  its  best,  and  it  is  not  for  physical 
advantages  alone  that  she  should  be  ever  grateful. 
i  All  the  exj^erience  of  the  old  world,  all  its  acqui- 
sitions, all  its  suiferings,  all  its  beacons  of  warning 
are  for  our  benefit.  Feudal  System,  Divine  Right, 
are  essentially  as  dead  figments  here  as  the  laws  of 
Lycurgus  or  Draco.  Religion  can  be  honestly  and 
ardently  cherished  because  priesthood  is  deprived  of 
political  power.  Universal  education,  the  only  pos- 
sible foundation  of  human  freedom,  is  the  easiest 
duty,  because  the  Church  is  powerless  to  arrogate  a 
function  which  it  can  never  discharge. 


32 

To  be  rid  of  the  cumbrous  macliiiiery  of  military 
conquest,  to  have  escaped  from  all  the  grand  Lamas 
into  whom  the  soul  of  the  great  Schaka  successively 
passes,  enduing  them  with  infallibility  and  omni- 
science, to  have  forgotten  many  of  these  worn-out 
traditions  of  Europe  and  Asia,  is  a  boon  for  which 
America  ought  to  be  daily  upon  her  knees. 

The  great  inventions  making  democracy  on  an  im- 
perial scale  possible;  representation  by  rule  of  three, 
the  steam-engine,  the  telegraph,  the  free  school,  and 
that  immense  instrument  of  civilization,  the  daily 
press,  had  been  waiting  to  be  perfected  until  she 
could  show  their  value  on  a  colossal  scale. 

For  in  time  a  new  term  would  have  to  be  inven- 
ted for  what  men  call  civilization  and  polity.  From 
civitas — city,  civilization,  civility  ;  from  2^olis — poli- 
tics, politician,  polit}^  —  always  from  the  city  had 
grown  empire  as  in  antiquity,  or  by  the  city  had 
been  wrested  liberties  as  in  media3val  times.  Culture 
was  ever  of  the  town, "  townish.  But  here  a  vast 
empire  had  been  waiting  for  its  empty  S2:)aces  to  be 
peopled,  three  millions  of  miles  with  never  a  town 
on  its  surface.  Clearly  the  phenomenon  was  a  new 
one  and  culture  here  could  only  mean  Democracy. 

But  to  the  solemn  birthday  of  the  infant  Ame- 
rica,  around   whose    cradle,    obscure    as    it   was,    so 


33 

many  good  spirits  had  invisibly  clustered,  one  malig- 
nant fairy  had  not  been  bidden,  and  her  name  was 
Privilege.  And  even  as  in  the  story-book  she  sent 
a  curse  to  avenge  the  slight.  Almost  on  that  natal 
day — we  know  the  tale  too  well,  and  have  had  cause 
to  ponder  it  bitterly — came  the  accursed  bark  with 
its  freight  of  victims  from  unhappy  Africa,  and 
Privilege  had  silently  planted  in  this  virgin  soil  the 
seeds  of  her  future  sway. 

It  was  an  accident — if  any  thing  can  be  called  ac- 
cidental in  the  grand  scheme  of  Creation — yet  out  of 
that  grain  of  mustard-seed  was  one  day  to  sprout 
an  evil  to  overshadow  this  land;  to  poison  with  its 
deadly  exhalations  the  vigorous  atmosphere  of  free- 
dom. Oligarchy  grew  up  and  held  its  own,  side  by 
side  with  Democracy — until  the  time  came  for  de- 
ciding whether  the  one  principle  or  the  other  was 
in  conformity  with  the  eternal  law. 

Chemistry  resolves  the  universe  into  a  few  ingre- 
dients. What,  for  example,  is  a  man?  Take  a  little 
hydrogen  and  oxygen,  nitrogen  and  carbon,  potash, 
lime,  and  sulphur,  Avith  a  pinch  or  two  of  salt ;  and 
there  is  your  hero  or  your  prize-fighter;  your  Plato 
or  your  Washington.  And  political  chemistry  is  no 
less  subtle  and  rapid  in  its  analysis.  Oligarchy  is 
resolved  into  the  same   gaseous  vapors  on  one   side 


34 

the  ocean  and  the  other.     So  soon  as  it  was  demon- 
strated   that    the    Slave    power    rested    on    Divine 
Right ;    so   soon  as  it  was   ascertained   on  authority 
that   the   Bible    ordained  not   negro    slavery  merely, 
bnt  hnman  slavery  without  distinction  of  color;    so 
soon  as  it  had  been  proclaimed  that  "  the  Bible  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  slavery  was  its  sheet-anchor ;"  so  soon 
as  it  had  been  categorically  stated  at  the  South,  "  that 
slavery  is  just,  natural,  and  necessary,  and  that  it  does 
not  depend  on  difference  of  color ; "  so  soon  as  the  new 
Evangel  had  announced  that  "  the  experiment  of  uni- 
versal liberty  had  failed,  that  the  evils  of  free  society 
are  insufferable,  and  that  policy  and  humanity  alike 
forbade  the  extension  of  its  evils  to  new  peoples  and 
coming  generations,"  and  that  "  there  was  no  solution 
of  the  great  j^roblem  of  reconciling  the  interests  of 
caj)ital  and  labor  so  simple  and  effective  as  to  make 
the  laborer  himself  capital" — in  all  which  statements 
I  am  only  quoting  literally  from  eminent  slave-power 
authority — it   became   obvious   that   the   identity   of 
Privilege,  whether  cis-  or  trans-Atlantic,  was  perfect. 
Grace  of  God,   Kiglit   Divine,   property   in   mankind 
claimed  by  human  creatures  superior  to  mankind,  mili- 
tary dominion,  political  priesthood — what  are  all  these 
but  the  nitrogen,  hydrogen,  carbon,  lime,  and  potash 
out  of  which  Privilege  is  always  compounded  ? 


Yet  this  great,  innocent,  ingenuous  American  De- 
mos rubbed  its  eyes  with  astonishment — as  its  great 
fight  with  Oligarchy  began  —  to  find  no  tears  run- 
ning down  the  iron  cheek  of  Privilege.  Why,  Pri- 
vilege would  have  been  an  idiot  if  it  had  wept  in 
sympathy  with  the  Demos.  Nothing  but  the  sancta 
simpUcitas  of  perfect  confidence  in  the  right,  nothing 
but  the  conviction  that  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence reaffirmed  the  statutes  of  the  Omnipotent 
could  have  explained  the  popular  delusion.  Slavery 
and  serfdom  have  been  abolished  throuo^hout  Eu- 
roj)e,  but  so  long  as  the  soil  of  many  great  emj^ires 
belongs  to  an  exquisitely  small  minority  of  the  in- 
habitants, are  not  Wamba  the  Witless  and  Gurth 
the  Swineherd  almost  as  much  born  thralls  to  their 
master  as  if  his  collar  were  still  upon  their  necks  ? 

"Patriotism,"  said  Samuel  Johnson,  at  the  epoch 
of  our  war  of  Independence,  "is  the  last  refuge  of 
a  scoundrel."  His  parents  believed,  you  remember, 
in  the  right  divine  of  a  queen's  finger  to  cure  the 
scrofula.  And  there  has  been  a  series  of  Dr.  John- 
sons from  his  day  to  ours,  all  over  Europe,  to  de- 
nounce patriots  and  rej^ublicatis,  especially  when 
they  are  causing  interruptions  to  trade.  So  close  an 
electric  chain  unites  America  and  Europe,  so  instan- 
taneous   are    their    action    and    retroaction,  that    the 


36 

American  civil  war,  at  least  in  Western  Europe,  be- 
came as  mucli  an  affair  of  passionate  party  feeling 
as  if  it  were  raging  on  that  side  tlie  Atlantic.  "I 
had  no  idea,"  said  a  very  eminent  statesman  to  John 
Bright,  on  two  different  occasions,  "how  mnch  in- 
fluence the  example  of  that  Eepublic  was  having 
upon  public  opinion  in  England  until  I  discovered 
the  universal  congratulation  that  the  Republic  was 
likely  to  be  broken  up." 

And  yet,  strange  to  say,  in  spite  of  the  breathless 
interest  with  which  the  result  and  tlie  daily  details 
were  watched  for,  it  would  be  difficult  to  exagge- 
rate the  ignorance  enwrapping  the  general  mind  of 
Europe  as  to  the  merits  and  meaning  of  the  conflict. 

In  popular  periodicals  and  lectures  of  to-day  you 
may  learn  much  of  the  bays,  rivers,  inlets,  oceans, 
and  continents  of  the  planet  Mars  ;  and  if  inclined 
for  a  vacation  excursion,  and  could  you  find  a  con- 
veyance thithei',  you  might  easily  arrange  a  tour  in 
that  planet,  starting  from  Huggin's  Inlet  and  sailing 
thirty  thousand  miles  along  one  of  its  very  conveni- 
ent estuaries  without  ever  losing  sight  of  land.  I 
know  not  whether  the  Martians  have  accepted  the 
nomenclature  of  Dawes  Continent,  Table-Leg  Bay,  and 
the  other  designations  laid  down  on  their  planet  by 
the  spirited  geographers  of  ours  ;  but   at   least  they 


87 

miglit  be  flattered  did  tliey  know  of  the  interest 
they  excite  on  this  eartli. 

Perliaj^s,  however,  if  they  knew  what  was  said 
of  them  here,  they  might  be  almost  as  much  amazed 
as  we  used  to  be  in  America  at  the  wonderful  dis- 
coveries made  by  Euroj^e  concerning  our  politics, 
geography,  history,  statistics,  national  character,  con- 
stitution, and  condition  during  the  late  civil  war. 

It  was  not  that  light  was  impossible.  The  thinkers 
and  the  workers  were  never  misled ;  the  brains  and  the 
bone  and  muscle  of  Europe  were  in  the  right  place. 

Without  mentioning;  other  illustrious  names  which 
might  be  cited,  I  will  remind  you  but  of  this. 
There  was  one  man  in  England — greatest  and  truest 
of  all — who  made  our  cause  his  own  through  good 
report  and  l)ad  re^^ort,  ^vhose  voice  found  an  echo 
in  every  patriotic  heart  in  this  country,  and  whose 
intellect  shone  like  the  sun  throus^h  the  mists  of 
passion  and  prejudice  obscuring  the  cause  of  liberty ; 
a  statesman  whose  public  speeches  will  be  always 
treasured  on  either  side  the  ocean  as  models  of 
eloquence  ;  and  whose  simple  Anglo-Saxon  name 
will  be  always  dear  to  lovers  of  liberty  in  future 
times  as  in  the  present.  You  know  already  that  I 
mean  John  Bright. 

And  the  great   conflict   went   on  while  the  world 


38 

stood  wondering.  Xever  in  liiiman  liistory  lias 
there  been  sucli  a  battle  with  such  a  stake.  It 
was  not  for  territory,  empire,  power.  It  was  not 
merely  for  the  integrity  of  jthis  vast  rei^ublican 
heritage.  These  things,  though  2:)recious,  are  of  little 
worth  compared  to  the  sacred  principle  concerned 
in  the  struo-ojle.  For  it  was  to  be  decided  whether 
the  great  law  of  liistory  which  we  have  been  trac- 
inir  was  a  truth  or  a  lie ;  whether  the  human  race 
has  been  steadily  although  slowly  progressing  or 
whether  we  have  been  fatally  drifting  back  to 
Chaos.  For  surely  if  freedom  is  an  evil  from  which 
society,  new  or  old,  is  to  be  saved  and  slavery  the 
great  remedy  and  the  great  hope  for  the  world,  the 
only  solution  of  j^olitical  problems,  then  is  the 
science  of  history  the  most  contemptible  of  all  ima- 
ginable studies.  It  was  not  a  question  for  Ame- 
rica but  for  the  world.  The  toilino;  multitudes  of 
the  earth  are  interested  in  the  fate  of  this  great 
republic  of  refuge,  which  receives  and  ])rotects  the 
oppressed  of  every  race.  "  My  countrymen  who 
work  for  your  living,"  said  John  Bright,  at  Bir- 
mingham, in  I8G0,  "  I'emember  this,  there  will  be 
one  wild  shriek  of  freedom  to  startle  all  mankind 
if  that  Republic  should  be  overthrown."  But  the 
game   was   fought   out,  and     both   v/inners   and   los- 


39 


ers  are  the  gainers.  The  South,  while  deeming 
itself  to  have  lost  all  save  honor,  will  be  more 
prosperous  than  it  ever  dreamed  of  ere  a  generation 
of  mankind  shall  have  passed  away.  Let  its 
"bruised  arms  be  hung  up  for  monuments,"  along 
with  the  trophies  of  the  triumphant  North  ;  for 
the  valor,  the  endurance,  and  self  sacrifice  were  equal 
on  both  sides,  and  the  defeated  party  was  van- 
quished because  neither  pride  of  color  nor  immortal 
hate  can  successfully  struggle  against  the  inexorable 
law  of  Freedom  and  Progress. 

I  have  spoken  much  of  America.  The  politi- 
cal aftairs  of  its  sister  Europe  are  at  this  mo- 
ment in  a  more  fluid  state  than  usual.  The  ef- 
fect of  the  triumph  of  freedom  in  this  country 
on  the  cause  of  progress  in  Europe  is  plain; 
but  it  would  be  impossible  in  the  limits  of  this 
address  to  take  a  survey  of  the  whole  field.  It 
seems  natural,  however,  to  glance  at  that  political 
and  social  heart  of  Europe  —  Germany.  Ever  since 
the  great  rising  for  freedom  against  the  Roman  em- 
pire,  down  to  this  hour,  Germany  has  been  the 
main  source  of  European  and  American  culture. 

The  common  mother  of  nations  and  empires— 
alma  mater  felix  ^^ro/c— she  still  rules  the  thought 
of    her    vast    brood    of    children;     Franks,   Goths, 


40 

Saxons,  Lombards,  Normans,  Netlierlanders,  Ameri- 
cans— Germans  all.  Her  Gothic  branches  in  the 
fifth  and  sixth  centuries  sweeping  to  and  fro  over  the 
extinct  Koman  empire  from  the  Ultima  Thule  of 
Britain  to  the  confines  of  Asia,  overlaying  and  con- 
trolling the  Latin,  Celtic,  Sclavonic  provinces  and 
tribes  ;  her  energetic  Norman  branch  of  pirates, 
seating  themselves  afterwards  with  such  happy 
audacity  on  every  throne  in  Europe,  from  the  Wil- 
liams and  Henrys  of  the  North  to  the  Rogers, 
Tancreds,  Godfreys,  and  Baldwins  of  the  South  and 
East,  from  the  Rurics  of  Russia  to  the  Roderics  of 
Spain ;  everywhere  in  high  places  and  low,  all-con- 
quering Germany  has  stamped  our  civilization  with 
her  impress  and  bequeathed  to  modern  languages 
the  treasures  of  her  ample  and  varied  dialects. 

Europe,  essentially  homogeneous  in  its  upper  strata, 
might  have  been  a  united  nation  a  thousand  years  ago, 
had  Science  been  sufiiciently  advanced  to  make  Union 
and  Democracy  possible  or  even  conceivable. 

But  disintegration  was  the  preliminary  process  by 
which  the  ground  was  prepared  for  new  culture. 
Everywhere  separation  into  small  national  group- 
ings was  the  initial  characteristic  of  European  his- 
tory. Seven  German  kingdoms  in  Avhat  we  now 
call    England ;    as    many     independent     dukes     and 


41 

sovereigns  in  present  France ;  a  dozen  kings  in 
Spain ;  in  Italy  ;  hundreds  of  tliem  in  Germany 
proper  ;  a  plurality  of  sovereignties,  in  short,  in  all 
the  districts  of  Christendom ;  thus  was  Europe 
broken  into  hostile  and  discordant  fragments.  And 
the  tendency  to  imite  these  jarring  sovereignties  into 
a  few  solid  masses  has  marked  her  later  history. 
A  thousand  years  ago  there  was  a  Heptarchy  in 
half  the  little  island  of  Britain.  Now,  Europe  itself 
is  hardly  more  than  a  Heptarchy. 

It  is  fortunate  for  civilization  that  Charlemagne's 
attempt  did  not  succeed,  because  at  that  stage  of 
intellectual  advancement.  Progress  was  of  necessity 
sporadic  and  intermittent.  Being  regarded  as  a  dis- 
ease, it  was  dealt  with  for  centuries  by  heroic  re^ 
medies — fire  and  sword — vigorously  applied  by  tlie 
military  and  sacerdotal  doctors  who  controlled  the 
body  politic.  The  new  empire  was  a  splendid  failure, 
and  that  essential  portion  of  it,  Germany,  was  soon 
shivered  into  many  fragments  of  sovereignty.  Un- 
der the  Golden  Bull,  five  hundred  years  ago,  the 
seven  electors  of  the  emperor  acquired  complete 
sovereignty  within  their  own  dominions.  Three  cen- 
turies later,  when  the  shameful  peace  of  Westphalia 
had  at  last  ended  that  conflict  of  demons,  which  we 
call  the  Thirty  Years  War,  the  disunion  of  Germany 


42 

was  completed.  More  than  three  hundred  sovereign- 
ties were  established  over  the  unhappy  land.  State- 
rights  symbolized  in  dynasties  of  every  imaginable  size 
— from  kingdoms  with  one  hundred  thousand  perma- 
nent troops  to  principalities  with,  standing  armies  of 
half  a  dozen  men  apiece — were  enjoyed  to  the  full. 
As  an  inevitable  consequence,  Germany  was  perpetu- 
ally exposed  to  domestic  intrigue  and  foreign  inva- 
sion. Over  the  three  hundred  and  seven  indepen- 
dent sovereigns  reigned  an  emperor  enjoying  the 
privilege  of  issuing  orders  which  none  of  them 
heeded,  and  of  governing  despotically  his  ancestral 
possessions,  too  feeble  to  resist  tyranny. 

Such  was  "  the  holy  Roman  empire " — an  appel- 
lation which,  as  Voltaire  remarked,  was  open  to 
criticism  on  three  points.  It  was  not  holy,  was  not 
Roman,  and  was  not  an  empire.  With  those  ex- 
ceptions, the  description  was  perfect.  The  people 
were  ground  to  powder  and  kept  in  microscopic 
divisions  of  territory  which  had  neither  the  dignity 
of  monarchy  nor  the  freedom  of  rejiublicanism.  A 
net-work  of  sovereign  and  independent  custom-houses 
and  forts  at  every  turn  as  tliick  as  mile-stones, 
an  intolerable  confusion  of  debased  and  detestable 
currencies,  strangled  commerce  and  impeded  circula- 
tion,   while    the    great    Gei'man    heart,   yearning   for 


43 

union  and  nationality,  and  for  freedom,  the  legitimate 
child  of  both,  grew  sick  with  hoj)e  deferred. 

After  nearly  two  centuries  more  had  passed  away, 
the  Congress  of  Vienna,  as  part  of  the  little  good 
that  it  accomplished  for  humanity,  at  least  much 
diminished  the  catalogue  of  petty  princes  in  Ger- 
many. Three  hundred  and  odd  of  them  went  up  to 
that  political  guillotine,  and  only  thirty-five  escaped 
with  life.  The  Germanic  Confederation,  a  league 
of  sovereigns  called  in  the  vernacular  the  Bund, 
was  set  up  in  place  of  the  defunct  empire,  and 
conducted  itself  with  much  pomp  until  its  power 
of  standing  alone  should  be  tested.  Magnificent  in 
its  deportment  towards  the  lesser  powers  of  Ger- 
many, and  especially  towards  the  people,  whose 
existence  it  never  recognized,  it  was  on  its  knees 
whenever  the  great  empire  or  the  great  kingdom — 
Austria  or  Prussia — wore  a  frowning  face. 

Meantime  the  German  Demos,  striving  after  union 
and  strength,  had  partially  achieved,  under  the  lead 
of  Prussia,  a  Customs'  Union.  The  National  league, 
filled  with  larger  ideas  of  union,  resolved,  as  an  ex- 
emplification of  a  princij^le,  to  free  the  German  in- 
habitants of  Schleswisi-Holstein  from  the  Danish 
crown.  The  two  great  jiowers  took  the  war  into 
their   own  hands.      Else   had   Democracy   taken   the 


u 


bit  into  its  teeth.  Tlie  Sclileswig-Holstein  war  was 
soon  over.  The  provinces  were  taken  from  Den- 
mark.     Then  followed  the  dispute  for  the  booty. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  familiar.  The  seven  weeks 
war  and  the  peace  of  Prague  —  which  passed  all  un- 
derstanding— for  behold,  when  the  smoke  was  clear- 
ed away,  not  only  was  Austria  excluded  from  Ger- 
many, but  even  her  allies  in  the  defunct  Bund — 
the  southern  states  —  had  accepted,  by  treaty,  the 
military  and  commei'cial  supremacy  of  Prussia.  Thus 
another  immense  stride  had  been  made  toward  Ger- 
man unity.  In  1648,  more  than  three  hundred  sove- 
reignties. In  1815,  three  dozen.  In  1866,  with  ex- 
ception of  the  Germanic  possessions  of  Austria,  essen- 
tially and  practically  one. 

How  much  has  liberty  gained  by  this  pro- 
gress ?  Time  will  show  that  progress  and  liberty 
are  identical.  It  is  impossible  that  the  success 
of  Prussia  is  to  end  in  the  establishment  of  one 
great  military  empire  the  more.  The  example 
and  the  retroaction  of  America  ;  the  success  liere 
of  freedom  and  progress — forbid  that  result.  The 
great  statesman  of  Prussia  is  distinguished  for  cour- 


age, insight,  breadth  of  vision,  iron  will,  and  a  warm 
and  steadfast  heart.  Ilis  genius  consists  in  the  in- 
stinctive  power   of  governing   by  conforming  to  the 


45 

spirit  of  the  age.  No  man  knows  better  tlian  Bis- 
marck, to  read  the  signs  of  the  times.  Small  is  the 
chance  of  Desj^otism  in  these  latter  days  to  stem 
the  Rapids.  She  may  utter  dismal  shrieks,  but 
shoot  Niagara  she  must. 

The  present  government  of  Austria  has  nobly  placed 
itself  on  the  right  road  out  of  great  perplexities. 
Numerous  individual  deeds  of  loiightly  valor  worthy 
of  the  age  of  chivalry ;  loyal  devotion  to  antique  but 
sacred  ideals ;  above  all,  a  spontaneous  and  signal 
benevolence  manifested  by  all  classes,  after  the  war ; 
from  highest  to  humblest — converting  the  jDalaces  of 
great  nobles,  the  mansions  of  burghers  and  cottages 
of  the  peasant,  into  hospitals,  where  the  sick  and 
wounded  were  tenderly  ministered  to  ])y  fair  and 
loving  hands — could  not  arrest  the  inexorable  march 
of  events.  The  brief  history  of  constitutionalism  in 
that  empire  is  full  of  instruction.  The  experiment 
has  been  a  triple  one — centralism,  federalism,  dual- 
ism. The  realm  is  an  agglomerate  of  many  distinct 
nationalities,  scattered  through  ten  kingdoms,  and 
more  than  thirty  duchies  or  other  princi2')alities. 
The  little  river  Leytlia  is  the  boundary  between  the 
hereditary  provinces  of  Habsburg  and  the  triune 
realm  of  the  holy  Stephen — consisting  of  Hungary, 
Transylvania,  and  Croatia — but  commonly  called  the 


46 

kingdom  of  Hungary.  Croatia,  again,  is  a  triad,  com- 
posed of  Croatia,  Sclavonia,  and  Dalmatia. 

After  the  revolt  of  1848-9  had  been  suppressed, 
a  constitution  for  the  whole  Austrian  empire  was 
promulgated,  whieli,  after  remaining  a  dead  letter  for 
a  couple  of  years,  was  repealed. 

Meantime  the  ancient,  aristocratic  constitution  of 
Hungary — which  the  imperial  lawyers  had  declared 
forfeit  throu2:h  her  revolt,  Ijut  the  leo-al  continu- 
ity  of  which  she  steadily  maintained,  during  the 
long  period  of  martial  law  and  absolutism  which 
ensued — had  received  2:reat  accessions  of  the  demo- 
cratic  principle  during  the  revolutionary  year,  espe- 
cially in  the  autonomy  secured  to  the  towns,  and 
by  the  provision  that  the  Diet  should  never  be 
dissolved  until  it  had  tlioroughly  discussed  and 
accepted  budgets  and  tax-laws  laid  before  it  by 
the  crown.  The  seventeen  Cis-Leythan  provinces, 
making  up  what  is  called  the  West  Half  of  the 
empire,  had  never  possessed  a  constitution  at  all. 
They  had  provincial  diets,  quarter-sessions  of  mag- 
nates and  burghers,  to  talk  of  provincial  affairs,  but 
without  legislative  functions. 

After  the  war  of  1859,  it  became  obvious  that 
the  people  must  participate  in  the  government  of 
the  empire.     The  sj^irit  of  the  age   Avas   too   urgent 


47 

to  be  resisted.  The  right  of  the  Austrian  people 
to  representation  and  legislation  was  accordingly 
announced  in  general  terms  by  the  October  Diplo- 
ma of  1860,  and  an  elaborate  constitution  was  pro- 
claimed in  the  following  February.  A  central  Par- 
liament or  Reichsrath  was  established  for  the  whole 
empire,  consisting  of  a  House  of  Peers  and  of  a  Re- 
presentative Chamber,  chosen,  somewhat  as  United 
States  Senators  are  elected,  for  six  years,  and  by  the 
provincial  diets.  The  Parliament  began  its  sessions, 
and  was  hailed  with '  great  enthusiasm  by  the  Ger- 
manic element  throughout  the  West  Half  But  beyond 
the  Leytha,  Hungary  scorned  the  new  constitution, 
stiffly  maintained  the  continuity  of  her  own,  and  re- 
fused, to  merge  her  legal  and  historical  indej^endence 
in  the  central  imperial  system  newly  promulgated. 

Military  government  continued  accordingly  through- 
out the  triune  realm  of  St.  Stephen  as  before.  Mean- 
time the  Schmerlino;  o-overnment  at  Vienna  adminis- 
tered  affairs ;  the  120  seats  designed  for  the  members 
from  Hungary  remaining  vacant.  "  We  can  wait," 
said  Minister  Schmerling.  "  We  too  can  wait,"  replied 
the  Hungarians.     And  they  won  the  waiting  game. 

In  September,  1865,  the  Schmerling  cabinet  fell, 
the  February  Constitution  was  suspended  by  Impe- 
rial edict,  the  experiment  of  centralism  was  acknow- 


48 

ledged  to  have  failed,  and  a  cabinet  founded  on  wliat 
is  called  federalism  was  formed. 

Federalism  was  to  consist  mainly  in  enlarging 
the  powers  of  the  provincial  diets  for  consultative  and 
financial  j)urj)oses,  and  in  coming  to  an  arrangement 
with  Hungary  by  means  of  moderate  concessions. 
The  system  to  be  adopted  was  essentially  aristo- 
cratic, founding  itself  on  state  rights,  and  on  the 
fortification  of  prerogative  against  democratic  inva- 
sion. The  Diet  of  Hungary  was  summoned  once 
more  to  listen  to  terms  of  compromise.  As  soon 
as  assembled,  the  Magyars  were  found  as  faithful 
as  ever  to  the  crown  of  St.  Stephen,  as  indifferent 
to  all  other  crowns  on  the  brow  of  their  monarch. 
Not  a  thought  was  admitted  of  swerving  from  the 
ancient  constitution,  nor  from  the  famous  statutes, 
already  alluded  to,  of  1849,  by  which  it  had  been  so 
thoroughly  liberalized.  The  conciliatory  rescripts  of 
the  Crown  were  answered  in  respectful  terms  by 
the  addresses  of  the  Diet — papers  glowing  with  elo- 
quence, splendid  with  almost  oriental  imagery,  fervid 
with  strictly  Hungarian  patriotism,  merciless  both  in 
law  and  logic.  The  debates  following  the  address 
were  of  the  same  character ;  for  the  brilliant  rhetoric 
which  had  been  imprisoned  in  the  enforced  silence 
of  those  eighteen  years  seemed  to  pour  forth   all  at 


49 

once  in  passionate  and  endless  strains,  like  the  frozen 
music  in  the  famous  traveller's  bngle  wlien  it  be- 
gan   to  thaw  before  the  genial  blaze. 

The  life  and  soul  of  the  Diet  was  Francis  Dedk, 
a  man  born  in  the  middle  classes,  a  practising 
lawyer,  of  moderate  fortune,  mth  no  personal  aims, 
and  of  surpassing  forensic  ability,  wielding  by  the 
power  of  genius  and  integrity  an  almost  despotic 
sway  over  the  proudest  aristocracy  in  the  world. 

The  interchange  of  rescripts  from  the  Crown,  re- 
fusing restoration  of  the  Hungarian  constitution  with- 
out previous  revision,  and  of  addresses  from  the  Diet, 
refusing  revision  of  it,  even  to  the  ninth  part  of  a 
hair  —  includino;  the  democratic  statutes  of  1849, 
and  laws  legalizing  disobedience  to  the  Crown, 
should  it  contravene  the  great  charter,  went  on  for 
several  months,  until  the  Prussian  war  brought  the 
debates  to  a  sudden  close. 

So  soon  as  it  was  over,  the  Hungarian  Diet 
was  once  more  convened.  Baron  Beust,  a  states- 
man of  quick  intellect,  large  political  experience, 
ready  eloquence  with  tongue  and  pen,  imperturb- 
able temper,  and  immense  power  of  work,  who  had 
long  been  administrator  of  the  little  kingdom  of 
Saxony,  became  Prime  Minister  and  Chancellor  of 
the   Austrian   empire.     Considering   the   experiments 


50 

botli  of  centralism  and  of  federalism  to  Lave  failed, 
he  decided  on  complete  concession  to  Hungary.  The 
constitution,  in  all  the  reverend  and  romantic  fea- 
tures of  age,  and  with  the  vigorous  revolutionary- 
blood  poured  into  its  veins  in  '49  to  renew  its 
youth,  was  restored  at  last,  and  a  Hungarian  minis- 
try formed.  At  the  head  of  it  was  placed  Count 
Andrassy,  who,  twenty  years  before,  had  been  con- 
demned to  death  for  his  part  in  the  troubles,  but 
had  effected  his  escape,  and  who  now  received  full 
pardon,  and  became  the  Hungarian  right-hand  of 
the  Emj)eroi". 

At  Pest,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  stately  and 
picturesque  pageant  that  has  been  seen  in  Europe 
for  centuries — a  scene  so  full  of  historical  and  medi- 
aeval sj^lendor  that  it  seemed  like  a  living  chapter  of 
Froissart  or  Philippe  de  Comines — the  king,  attired 
in  a  long  brocaded  mantle,  with  the  sacred,  jewelled 
crown  of  St.  Stephen  on  his  head,  and  mounted  on 
a  splendidly-caparisoned  cream-white  liorse,  which  he 
managed  witli  perfect  skill,  amid  wild  shouts  of  Eljen 
from  his  lieges,  almost  mad  with  enthusiasm,  rode 
up  the  sacred  mound  on  the  Danulje,  and  waved 
the  ancient  sword  of  a  long  line  of  ancestors  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  world,  in  symbol  of  protection 
to  the  realm.     Hungary  was  restored. 

i 


Tlie  next  problem  was  to  reestablish  constitution- 
alism on  tlie  otlier  side  of  tlie  Leytlia.  Tlie  striking 
simile  of  Deak,  likening  tlie  empire  to  a  majestic 
arcli  resting  on  two  stately  columns,  wliicli  could 
not  be  brouslit  nearer  to  eacli  other  without  endau- 
gering  the  existence  of  the  arch,  was  much  admired. 
The  Hunsfarian  column  was  erect  at  last,  l^ut  where 
was  the  other  pillar  ?  The  West  Half,  as  Deak  was 
fond  of  calling  that  part  of  Austria  which  was  not 
Hungary,  was  in  reality  to  be  created. 

An  e  'plurihus  unmn  Lad  failed.  An  e  plurlhus 
duo  was  resolved  upon.  A  kind  of  constituent 
assembly  of  the  Western  provinces  was  convoked. 
Then  came  a  o-reat  outbreak  of  dissatisfaction  on 
both  sides  the  Leytlia,  from  the  Sclavonic  nationali- 
ties, which  outnumber  the  Germans  and  the  Magyars 
combined.     This  dissatisfaction  is  easily  explained. 

The  problem  of  fusing  nationalities  into  a  nation 
is  always  hard  to  solve.  In  Austria,  the  leading 
three  are  the  German,  Hungarian,  and  Sclavonic. 
The  Mag}'ars,  the  last  direct  emigration  out  of  x\sia 
into  Europe,  have  held  the  wide,  fruitful  plains  on 
the  borders  of  Turkey  and  Russia  for  a  thousand 
years,  wedging  themselves  firmly  between  the  more 
ancient  settlers  of  the  Sclavonic  family.  At  this 
moment  there  are  about  five  million  Magyars,  nine 


52 

million  Germans,  and  fifteen  million  Selavonians,  out 
of  tliirty-two  millions  of  the  whole  j)opnlation  of 
the  empire. 

But  there  has  been  no  single  dominant,  national 
language  to  absorb  into  itself  those  various  tongues. 
And  difference  of  speech  has  kept  nationalities  dis- 
tinct, and  of  course  j^i'omoted  disunion.  So  soon  as 
the  pressure  of  absolutism  was  removed,  each  nation- 
ality began  to  assert  its  own  rights,  its  own  indepen- 
dence, its  own  dialect,  and  to  separate  its  aspirations 
and  traditions  from  those  of  its  sisters.  Subjects 
which  would  seem  more  appropriate  to  antiquarian 
societies  or  debating  clubs  than  to  the  realm  of  poli- 
tics became  popular  themes  for  statesmen  and  legis- 
lators. The  Magyars  —  a  pi'oud,  chivalrous  people, 
with  much  aptitude  for  politics — had  for  centuries 
governed  tAvice  their  number  of  Selavonians,  control- 
ling not.  only  the  whole  of  Hungary,  but  the  annexed 
provinces  of  Transylvania  and  Croatia.  In  those  re- 
mote, and,  to  the  general  American  public,  obscure 
regions,  lie  the  seeds  of  many  future  convulsions  in 
Europe,  to  which  I  shall  not  allude  on  this  occasion. 

Thirty  years  ago,  and  of  course  long  before  the  fa- 
mous democratic  era  of  1849,  the  Magyars  alarmed,  it 
has  Ijeen  suggested,  by  sjmiptoms  adverse  to  the  dura- 
tion of  their  race,  determined  to  force  their  language 


53 

over  tte  wliole  triune  kingdom.  Previously  the  de- 
bates in  tlie  Diet  at  Pest,  to  which  came  up  deputies 
from  Transylvania  and  Croatia  as  well  as  from  Hun- 
gary proper,  had  been  conducted  in  Latin,  as  a 
common  medium  in  which  alone  Sclavs  and  Mag- 
yars could  comprehend  each  other.  It  was  now  or- 
dained that  Hungarian  only  should  be  used  in  legis- 
lative assemblies,  in  courts  of  justice,  in  municipal 
sessions,  in  all  the  common  affairs  of  civic  life.  If 
there  was  a  dispute  about  money  matters,  the  tribu- 
nal would  refuse  to  adjudicate  unless  accounts  had 
been  kept  in  Magyar,  by  those  who  knew  not  a 
word  of  the  lano;uao;e. 

In  towns  where  the  population  was  exclusively 
Sclavonic,  Magyar  clergymen  were  required  to  preach 
in  the  Magyar  language  to  congregations  of  course 
unable  to  understand  a  Avord  of  their  discourse,  and 
Sclav  children  were  required  to  learn  their  catechism 
in  Magyar,  those  Avho  resisted  such  tyranny  being 
punished  with  stripes,  because  the  dignity  of  the 
nation  required  it. 

If  the  legislature  of  New- York  should  ordain  to- 
day that  in  churches,  courts  of  justice,  legislative 
and  municipal  assemblies,  schools  and  Bible  classes, 
the  Dutch  lanmiao-e  should  be  used  to  the  exclusion, 
in  part,  of  other  tongues,  because  a  very  distinguish- 


54 

ed  and  influential  portion  of  the  population  are  of 
Netherland  descent,  it  would  exemplify  the  language- 
policy  forced,  in  the  last  generation,  on  the  non-Mag- 
yar inhabitants  of  Hungary.  Thus  would  be  seen 
tlie  evils  inherent  in  steady  encouragement  of  state 
traditions,  ^^I'ovincial  feelings,  and  separate  nationali- 
ties in  a  great  country.  Certainly,  if  members  of 
one  legislature  could  only  understand  each  other  by 
using  a  dead  language,  it  would  seem  natural  enough 
for  the  dominant  nationality  to  enforce  its  own  dia- 
lect on  the  rest.  But  unfortunately,  the  Magyar  is 
most  difficult  to  acquire,  while  Dutch  would  be  easy 
enough  to  learn  in  this  State,  l)eing  only  another 
branch  of  Anglo-Saxon.  By  its  ready  power  of  as- 
similation, the  composite  English  language  has  be- 
come the  admirable  tongue  it  is  for  a3sthetic  and 
practical  purposes.  It  is  through  the  same  process 
too  that  a  great  nation  has  evolved  itself  here,  while 
in  Austria  the  self-assertion  of  nationalities  has  pre- 
vented an  empire  from  becoming  a  nation. 

On  the  other  side  the  Leytha,  the  dominant  national- 
ity, although  a  minority  likewise,  is  German,  number- 
ing but  nine  out  of  nineteen  millions.  So  soon,  there- 
fore, as  Hungary  had  carried  its  ])oint  of  entire  in- 
dependence, and  was  about  to  make  a  treaty  with 
something   called   the   West  Half,    "as   one    indepen- 


55 

dent  nation  treats  with  another  independent  nation," 
the  Sclavonic  resentment  thus  explained  was  every- 
where intense.  In  Gallieia,  where  the  j^opulation  is 
entirely  Sclav;  in  Bohemia  and  Moravia,  where  the 
German  and  Sclavonic  elements  are  in  equilibrium,  by 
at  least  ten  millions  of  the  peoj^le  therefore,  there  was 
fierce  opposition  to  the  new  j^olicy.  Dualism  was 
denounced  as  unjust,  illegal,  monstrous,  a  logical  self- 
contradiction.  To  divide  an  empire  into  two  halves 
and  still  to  retain  the  existence  of  the  empire,  was 
declared  to  be  like  squaring  the  circle;  a  geometri- 
cal impossibility. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  German  party,  swallow- 
ing their  grief  at  the  extinction  of  centralism,  ^varm- 
ly  supported  the  j)olicy  of  the  government. 

The  imperial  arch  may  be  said,  therefore,  to  rest 
on  the  two  columns  of  Germanism  and  Magyarism ; 
upon  the  two  dominant  nationalities  in  which  the 
Chancellor  Baron  Beust  expects  firmest  supj^ort. 
Some  of  the  most  progressive  and  eloquent  German 
representatives  in  the  old  Reichsrath  have  seats  in 
the  "West  Cabinet. 

Still  more  significant  are  the  abolition  of  the  Con- 
cordat and  the  liberation  of  education  and  marriage 
from  the  exclusive  control  of  the  Catholic  priest- 
hood or  of  any  priesthood. 


56 

"  The  law  of  last  December  establishes  free  liber- 
ty for  all  opinions,  liberty  of  marriage,  liberty  of 
education,  liberty  of  the  press,  liberty  of  faith,  no 
matter  of  what  confession  or  doctrine.  It  grants  to 
the  members  of  each  confession  the  rights  of  estab- 
lishing public  schools  and  colleges,  and  members  of 
every  confession  are  allowed  to  be  admitted  on  the 
same  footing  with  the  sanction  of  the  state."'^' 

On  the  25th  of  May  of  the  present  year,  a 
law  on  education  was  passed,  "  which  suppresses 
all  the  influence  of  the  Catholic  Church  or  of  any 
church  over  education,  decreeing  that  the  whole  su- 
perior' supervision  of  education,  literature,  and  sci- 
ence, as  also  the  inspection  of  schools,  belongs  to 
the  state,  which  finally  decrees  that  religious  teach- 
ing in  the  public  schools  must  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  members  of  each  separate  confession;  that 
any  religious  society  may  open  private  or  special 
schools  for  the  youth  of  its  faith;  that  these  schools 
shall  also  be  sul)ject  to  the  supreme  inspection  of 
the  state,  and  that  the  school-books  shall  be  sub- 
ject to  the  approval  of  the  civil  authorities,  with 
the  exception,  however,  of  such  books  as  are  meant 
for   religious   instruction,   which    must   l)e   submitted 

*  The  quotation  is  from  tlic  Papal  allocution,  in  which  the  measures  are 
described  in  order  to  be  denounced. 


57 

to  tlie  approval  of  the  competent  antliorities  of  eacli 
confession."* 

More  just,  enlightened,  progressive  legislation  than 
this,  on  such  vital  subjects,  could  not  be  expected 
in  our  ov^n  land — in  New- York,  Ohio,  Massachusetts 
— where  you  will. 

An  ecclesiastical  convention  has  been  held  in  the 
Tyi'ol  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  "  restoring  the 
Lord  God  to  his  rights,"  invaded  by  this  legislation 
of  the  Reichsrath  on  education  and  marriage.  The 
twenty-five  bishops  of  the  empire  addressed  a  pas- 
sionate appeal  to  the  emperor  on  the  subject  of  the 
Concordat  and  of  these  new  laws,  and  received  from 
liis  Majesty  a  stern  rej^ly  that  such  matters  were  in 
the  hands  of  his  responsible  advisers,  and  that  the 
duty  of  the  church  was  to  assist  government  in  this 
grave  national  crisis  rather  than  to  add  to  its  diffi- 
culties by  inflammatory  and  seditious  language. 

This  autograph  letter  of  the  emperor  was  read  in 
the  Keichsrath  amid  tumultuous  cheers  ;  tlie  whole 
assembly  rising  to  their  feet. 

E  plurihus  duo  is  established.  The  attempt  to 
square  the  political  circle  has  a  fair  prospect  of  suc- 
cess. To  assist  the  separate  nationalities  in  moving 
off   from   each    other   in   all   directions,   to   cultivate 

*  From  the  Papal  allocution. 


58 

separation  of  language,  literature,  tradition,  costume, 
habit,  law  —  disintegration,  in  short  —  would  be  to 
remand  the  empire  into  Absolutism  or  Chaos.  The 
cause  of  human  progress  is  benefited  by  the  experi- 
ment now  making  in  Austria,  and  the  friends  of 
civilization  and  freedom  should  wish  it  Godspeed. 
A  double  ministry,  out  of  which  a  third  one  is  evol- 
ved for  imperial  purposes  only  —  such  a  scheme 
seems  delicate  and  complicated  for  rough  work. 
But  Dualism,  combined  with  personal  union  under 
one  sovereign,  is  rather  a  phrase  than  a  fact ;  the 
two  halves  of  the  empire  being  practically  con- 
joined and  dependent  on  each  other,  especially  on 
the  two  great  departments  of  war  and  foreign  affairs. 

Thus  do  we  find  signs  of  healthful  progress  in 
many  parts  of  Euro^^e  toward  free  institutions.  So 
far  has  the  democratic  principle,  ever  glowing  amid 
heaj^s  of  scoriae,  forced  itself  above  the  superincum- 
bent crust. 

Happy  this  single  great  nation  on  earth,  where 
that  principle  is  recognized  as  the  legitimate  source 
of  life  and  heat,  not  dreaded  as  flame  from  the 
lowest  pit  to  devastate  and  consume  ! 

But  alas  !  progress  must  be  fettered  and  halting 
everywhere,  under  the  military  rule  prevailing  over 
continental  Europe. 


59 

Reflect   upon   tliese   little   figures   in   simple  arith- 
metic : 

France   has   1,200,000  soldiers. 
Italy  has   500,000. 
Prussia  about  one  million. 
Austria,  800,000. 
Russia  nearly  a  million. 

Thus  merely  the  Pentarchy  of  the  continent,  its 
five  leading  powers  alone — not  counting  the  middle 
and  lesser  powers,  of  which  almost  the  least  have 
larger  armies  than  the  present  forces  of  the  United 
States — keep  nearly  five  millions  of  men  perj^etu- 
ally  on  foot,  while  this  great  Republic  has  about 
40,000  men. 

No  epigram  could  l)e  terser.  We  know  from 
recent  experience  how  much  it  costs  to  keep  up 
great  armies.  And  we  have  proved  to  the  world 
that  ^vliere  great  principles  or  where  the  national 
existence  is  at  stake,  every  citizen  becomes  a  soldier, 
that  immortal  commanders  start  out  of  obscurity 
into  fame,  and  that  great  armies  resolve  themselves 
again  into  the  mass  of  the  people,  becoming  enno- 
bled by  their  military  experience,  and  even  better 
citizens  than   before. 

But   here   is   the    heart    of    life    taken   systemati- 


60 

cally  out  of  all  these  citizens  iu  every  monarchy. 
For  a  period,  varying  from  fifteen  to  nine  years — 
the  whole  of  youth  and  the  cream  of  middle  age — 
these  men  lose  their  family,  their  home,  their 
country ;  becoming  citizens  only  of  that  dangerous 
military  commonwealth  which  holds  potentates  and 
subjects  alike   in  its  iron  grasp. 

Is  it  really  the  final  result  of  European  civiliza- 
tion to  decide  which  nation  shall  have  the  most 
populous   armies   and  the   biggest  guns  ? 

Before  the  infinity  of  the  universe  and  the  great 
laws  of  motion  were  known,  historical  disquisition 
was  but  a  meagre  and  discomforting  pursuit.  But 
now — standing  on  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time — we 
are  able  at  least  to  hazard  dim  glances  into  those 
infinite  sj)aces  which  we  call  the  Past  and  the 
Future,  and  to  guess  at  some  of  those  laws  of  in- 
tellectual  motion  which   we  call   Progress. 

Nor  is  a  contemplation  of  the  conditions  of  any 
nation  inspiring  or  suggestive,  unless  the  presence 
of  that  electric  chain  is  felt  by  which  all  humanity 
is  darkly  bound.  It  is  impossible  for  one  nation 
to  acquire  without  accpiiring  for  all — for  one  great 
member  of  the  human  family  to  advance  or  to  re- 
trograde without  hastening  or  retarding  the  gene- 
ral   march  of  humanity.      And  it  is  for   this  reason 


61 

that  I  liave  called  your  attention  to-night  to  a  sii- 
j)erficial  and  most  inadequate  view  of  human  j)ro- 
gress  through  innumerable  ages,  and  especially  to 
the  influence  exerted  upon  that  progress  and  upon 
the  fortunes  of  man  by  the  example  and  the  fiite 
of  this   Republic. 

I  have  dwelt  long,  by  way  of  illustration,  on 
recent  events  in  Central  Europe.  I  should  have 
liked  to  say  something  of  Spain,  of  Italy,  of  France, 
but  time  fails  me,  and  perhaj)s  one  or  two  exam- 
ples are   as  useful  as   a  score. 

It  is  im2:)ossible,  however,  not  to  make  a  passing 
allusion  to  the  presidential  election  which  has  just  oc- 
curred in  Great  Britain  almost  simultaneously  with 
our  own.  I  say  presidential  election — because  on  the 
vote  just  taken  it  has  been  decided  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, and  not  Mr.  Disraeli,  is  to  preside  over  aftairs 
in  England  for  the  next  political  term,  be  it  long 
or  short  —  as  conclusively  as  if  their  names  had 
been  voted  for  on  general  ticket.  There  the  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  is  Prime  Minister  for  Her 
Majesty  the  Queen.  Here  the  President  is  Prime 
Minister  for   His  Majesty   the  People. 

Who  can  doubt  that  among  the  indirect  results 
of  the  success  of  the  Union  in  the  late  war  was 
the    passage   of   a   reform   bill    by   a    Tory    govern- 


62 

ment,  establishing  something  nearly  approaching  to 
universal  suffrage  in  England  ?  A  vast  revolution 
has  been  accomplished  in  that  great  country,  which 
is  destined  to  place  her — where  she  ought  ever  to 
be — side  by  side,  in  full  friendship  and  in  generous 
rivalry  of  freedom  and  the  arts  of  peace  with  this 
Republic  —  both  children  of  the  ancient  German 
mother. 

The  British  Parliament,  which  governs  thirty 
millions  of  citizens,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  subjects,  which  by  a  statute  passed 
at  any  moment  can  change  the  constitution,  alter 
the  succession  to  the  croA^^l,  convert  the  monarchy 
into  a  commonwealth  or  a  despotism,  prescribe  the 
creed  of  the  CJuu*ch — has  been  hitherto  a  represen- 
tative of  land,  and  not  of  man.  The  best  club  in 
London,  exclusive,  full  of  distinguished  and  eloquent 
gentlemen ;  delightfully  situated  on  the  Thames,  with 
charming  terraces  and  bay-windows  on  the  river ; 
an  excellent  library,  within  five  minutes'  walk  of  all 
the  public  ofiices,  and  with  the  privilege  of  go- 
verning a  splendid  empire  into  the  bargain,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  men  were  willing  to  pay  well  in  times 
past  for  seats  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and  it  is 
a  sure  mark  of  progress  that  the  average  expense 
of  seats  has  been   steadily   diminishing.      The   good 


63 

old  times  are  gone  for  ever  when  boroughs  com- 
fortably advertised  themselves  for  sale  in  the  public 
journals,  and  when  a  working  majority  of  the  House 
held  their  seats  on  the  nomination  and  at  the  plea- 
sure of  less  than  two  hundred  landholders  —  about 
two  members  on  an  average  for  each  landholder, 
It  is  certainly  to  the  credit  of  the  British  peoj^le, 
and  proof  of  their  indomitable  love  of  liberty,  that 
they  have  moved  steadily  forward,  and,  without  civil 
war,  have  achieved  such  trium2:)hs  as  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, the  corn  law  repeal,  the  reform  bill  of  1830, 
and  the  reform   bill  just  coming  into  operation. 

After  all,  the  English  household  suffrage  l)ill  is 
the  fruit  of  the  Appomattox  apple-tree.  Who  im- 
agined in  1863  that  power  would  be  transferred, 
in  England,  so  soon  from  land  to  people,  with- 
out bloodshed,  and  that  it  would  be  done  by 
Tories  ? 

Meantime  Land  is  likely  to  hold  its  own  for  a 
season  lons^er  in  its  race  ag^ainst  Man ;  but  Man 
must  be  the  winner  at  last,  and  will  soon  learn 
the  meaning  of  the  revolution  which  has  been 
accomplished. 

England  is  a  landed  aristocracy.  Twenty  million 
men  live  in  England,  thirty  thousand  men  own 
England.      The  pyramid   stands  on  its   apex. 


64 

In  America  is  a  landed  democracy.  Every  man 
votes,  and  every  man  may  l^e  a  landholder  who  is 
willing  to  go  West  for  a  homestead.  Our  experi- 
ment has  often  been  pronounced  a  new  and  a  bold 
one.  It  is  an  experiment,  but  scarcely  a  bold 
one.  It  is  simply  to  see  if  the  pyramid  can  be 
made  to  stand  on  its  base.  Thus  far  it  has  stood, 
although  Privilege  was  amazed  the  other  day  that 
it  was  not  toppled  over,  feeling  that  no  other  go- 
vernment could  have  resisted  such  a  shock  as  was 
dealt  to  our  fabric. 

Over  the  whole  surface  of  Europe  there  are  symp- 
toms of  human  progress.  There  are  few  people  so 
benighted  as  to  be  incapable  of  imagining  light;  as 
in  caverns  where  the  sun  never  shone,  naturalists 
tell  us  of  organized  beings,  insects,  re2:)tiles,  fishes, 
with  at  least  the  rudiments  of  eyes  and  wings. 

There  is  movement  all  over  Europe,  as  I  hope  to 
have  proved  by  pregnant  examples.  Through  the 
long  Past  there  have  been  political  lullabies  for  the 
infant  Man;  Divine  right,  Infallil)ility,  charters  to 
the  people  instead  of  charters  from  the  people;  uni- 
versal suffrage  combined  with  universal  bayonets  ; 
above  all,  the  magnificent  platitude  that  government 
always   exists  with   full   consent   of  the  governed. 

America  stands   upon  the  firm  land  toward  which 


65 

other  nations  are  slowly  making  their  way  through 
revolutions  or  without  them.  If  she  does  not  now 
start  on  an  upward  progress,  intellectual  and  moral, 
such  as  was  never  known  before,  she  commits  a 
crime   ao^ainst   mankind. 

The  European  emigrant,  the  forlorn  outcast  it  may 
be  of  older  civilizations,  finds  already  accomj)lished 
here  the  revolution  which  he  has  "  dreaded  Tmt 
dwelt  uj^on"  as  the  darkest  of  crimes.  But  that 
emigi'ation,  amounting  to  three  millions  of  Euro- 
peans every  ten  or  twelve  years,  has  been  always 
in  one  direction  and  on  a  comparatively  limited 
scale. 

Two  centuries  before  the  Christian  era,  manj^ 
millions  of  men  were  occupied — as  we  have  all 
read  in  the  School  Books — ten  years  long  in  building 
a  wall.  That  wall,  although  decaying,  stands  to  this 
day.  It  is  fifteen  hundred  miles  in  length ;  it  is 
twenty-five  feet  high,  and  so  broad  that  six  cavalry- 
men can  ride  abreast  upon  it.  It  is  sometimes  carried 
over  mountains  of  a  mile's  perpendicular  height.  Its 
masonry  is  so  conscientious  that  it  is  said  to  be 
impossible  to  thrust  a  nail  between  the  massive 
stones  of  which  it  is  composed.  There  are  towers 
and  bastions  for  armed  men  at  regular  intervals 
through  all  its  prodigious  length. 


6Q 

Tins  wall  was  built — as  we  all  know — by  Tsin- 
Sliee-Hwang-Tee,  founder  of  the  dynasty  of  Tsin,  as 
protection  against  tlie  incursions  of  the  Tartars. 

But  what  is  this  stupendous  piece  of  mason 
work,  bristling  with '  armed  men,  "which  has  done  its 
best  for  two  thousand  years  to  protect  one  third  of 
the  human  race  from  the  invasion  of  their  fellow-crea- 
tures, compared  to  that  air-drawn  barrier,  invisible, 
impalpable,  yet  until  recent  events  impregnable, 
which  has  barred  the  road  to  emigration  southward, 
and  which  we  call  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  ? 

The  European  wanderer,  pushing  westward  after 
landing  on  these  shores,  finds  an  enormous  plain 
stretching  between  the  Rocky  and  the  Appalachian 
mountains — from  the  gulf  to  the  Arctic,  and  con- 
taining, below  the  forty-fifth  parallel,  a  surface  of 
unexampled  fertility  of  a  million  and  a  half  square 
miles  in  extent.  There  are  coal-fields,  too,  larger 
than  the  whole  surface  of  Great  Britain.  Farther 
on,  there  are  gold  mines  which  in  twenty  years 
have  produced  more  of  the  precious  metal  than 
had  the  mines  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  after  they 
had  trebled  the  prices  of  commodities  and  revolu- 
tionized the  commerce  of  the  world.  There  is  no 
feudal  system,  no  state  church  to  prescril>e  or  pro- 
scribe his  religious  creed  and  prohibit  the  education 


67 

of  his  children.  The  most  commodious  buikling  in 
every  town  is  usually  the  school-house,  in  which 
his  children  are  gratuitously  educated  in  common 
with  those  of  the  richest  citizens,  and  where  all 
are  converted  into  Americans  together  ;  not  taught 
to  harp  upon  nationalities  or  to  wrangle  of  creeds. 
He  finds  Catholics,  Protestants,  Hebrews  side  by 
side  in  mutual  respect  and  affection ;  illustrious 
men  not  more  admired  and  beloved  by  those  of 
their  own  faith  than  hj  those  of  a  difterent 
church. 

But  the  most  tempting,  semi-tropical  region,  pro- 
ducing the  great  staple  on  which  so  large  a  part 
of  the  world's  industry  depends,  has  not  cultivated 
much  more  than  one  per  cent  of  the  soil — a  re- 
gion three  times  as  large  as  France — which  might 
yield  that  precious  2")lant  in  profusion,  feed  and 
clothe  untold  millions  and  maintain  empires.  The 
cotton  crop  has  languished  ±ar  behind  its  j^ossibili- 
ties  because,  while  there  was  no  limit  to  the  de- 
mand, an  increase  to  the  suj^ply  of  labor  was  sternly 
forbidden  ;  few  emi2:rants  darino^  to  cross  that  awful 
barrier. 

We  stand  on  the  threshold  of  great  events.  A 
change   in    tlie   conditions     of  mankind    is    impend- 


68 


"  A  multitude  like  which  the  populous  North 
Poured  never  from  her  frozen  loins  to  pass 
Rliene  or  the  Danaw  when  her  barbarous  sons 
Came  lilce  a  deluge  on  the  South," 

is  gradually  collecting  in  distant  regions.  Is  it 
possible  tliat  tliose  vast  and  fruitful  plains,  which 
have  so  long  been  panting  in  vain  for  culture  are 
to  lie  fallow  still  when  the  famishing  labor  of  the 
world  is  anxious  for  a  summons  ? 

No  country  ever  prospered  long  where  labor  was 
dishonored.  Look  at  Spain,  where,  two  and  a  half 
centuries  ago,  the  most  effective  j)opulation  in  the  land 
— five  hundred  thousand  full-grown  men  and  women — 
were  expelled  from  the  country,  at  the  dictate  of  the 
archbishop  of  Toledo,  because  they  were  industrious 
and  because  they  were  Moors — an  achievement  of 
such  stupendous  idiocy  that  a  wiser  churchman,  Car- 
dinal Richelieu,  afterwards  declared  it  to  be  the 
most  audacious  and  barbarous  ever  recorded  by 
history — and  think  of  Spanish  misfortunes  from  that 
day  to  this.  On  remote  Bohemian,  IVloravian, 
Swabian,  Swedish  mountains  and  plains  human 
creatures  are  toiling  life  long,  from  squalid  cradle 
to  pauper  grave,  for  a  daily  wage  of  ten  cents 
each.  Dowai  among:  dismal  coal-mines  in  various 
parts    of    Europe,    men,   women,    and    children    are 


69 

banislied,  weeks  and  inontlis  long,  from  "the  warm 
precincts  of  tlie  cheerful  day,"  from  home  affections, 
from  education,  from  civilization ;  companions  of  the 
fossilized  reptiles  which  perished  hundreds  of  thou- 
sand-years ago,  overshadowed  and  begrimed  by  the 
charred  and  carbonized  forests  of  the  j^rimeval  world  ; 
moiling  from  childhood  to  old  age  foi*  a  pittance 
barely  sufficient  to  support  life,  that  they  may  pile 
up  still  higher  the  magnificent  fabric  of  feudal 
pomp  which  has  so  long  doomed  them  and  their 
fellows  to  a  livino;  burial.  Is  it  to  be  imao-ined 
that  such  step-children  of  European  civilization 
would  not  be  wooed  from  their  dismal  caves 
into  the  genial  climate,  the  virgin  forests,  the 
exuberant  savannahs  of  the  South,  and  be  con- 
verted from  gnomes  and  cobolds  into  men,  so  soon 
as  the  long  trance  has  been  broken  there,  labor 
raised  from  degradation,  and  the  great  law  of  De- 
mocracy  accepted  ? 

The  inestimable  blessing  of  the  abolition  of  slav- 
ery to  the  cause  of  progress,  above  all  to  the 
South  itself,  can  never  be  exao-o-erated.  The  fetters 
have  fallen  not  from  the  black  alone,  but  from  the 
white,  from  all  mankind.  The  standing  reproach  to 
Democracy  is  removed  at  last,  and  the  basis  of 
our  national  institutions  has  become  an  everlasting 
truth. 


70 

Tlius  far  I  liave  trespassed  on  your  patience, 
wliile  dimly  endeavoring  to  trace  from  what  we 
know  or  imagine  of  history,  proofs  of  that  law  of 
progress  to  the  disbelievers  in  which  history  can 
teach  nothing.  My  faith  in  that  law  and  in  the 
Avelfare  of  this  Kepublic,  in  proportion  to  her  con- 
formity to  that  law,  is  absolute.  That  all  mankind 
are  capable  of  progress  I  as  devoutly  believe. 
None  can  be  deljarred  from  the  inalienable  right 
to  intellectual  and  moral  development,  which  is  the 
true  meaning  of  the  pursuit  of  hap2)iness,  as  pro- 
claimed in  our  great  statute.  And  hope  may  come 
to  all.  In  some  of  the  Western  j^ortions  of  this 
country,  amidst  the  profusion  of  nearly  all  the  gifts 
of  Heaven,  there  is  a  deficiency  of  pure  water. 
But  American  energy  is  not  to  be  balked  by  dis- 
sembling Nature  of  that  first  necessity  of  life. 
Artesian  wells  are  sunk  through  the  sod  of  the 
prairies,  through  the  loam,  through  the  gravel, 
through  the  hard-pan  which  is  almost  granite, 
until  at  last,  one  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  feet 
beneath  the  surface,  the  hand  of  man  reveals  a 
deep  and  rapid  river  coursing  through  those  solitary, 
sunless  depths  at  a  speed  of  ten  miles  the  hour, 
swifter  than  Ohio,  or  Mississippi,  or  Hudson,  or  any 
of  the  bountiful  and  imperial  streams  of  this  country, 


71 

flowing  as  they  do  tLrougli  picturesque  mountain 
scenery,  stately  forest  or  enamelled  meadow,  amid 
towered  cities  or  cultivated  fields.  And  wlien  the 
shaft  has  reached  that  imprisoned  river,  and  the 
rent  for  the  first  time  has  been  made  throuo-h  its 
dungeon  wall,  the  waters,  remembering  the  august 
source  on  fixr  distant  mountain  toj^s  Avhence  ages 
ago  they  fell,  leap  upward  to  the  light  with  ter- 
rible energy,  rising  in  an  instant  far  above  the 
surface  of  the  earth  and  230uring  forth  their  health- 
ful and  fertilizing  current  to  delight  and  refresh 
Mankind.  And  with  even  such  an  awakeninc:  are 
we  gladdened  when  halfforgotten  Humanity  bursts 
from  time  to  time  out  of  the  depths  in  which  it 
has  pursued  its  joyless,  sunless  course,  moaning  and 
murmuring  through  long  centuries  but  never  quite 
forgetting  its  divine  and  distant  origin. 

Such  was  the  upward  movement  out  of  intellec- 
tual thraldom  which  we  call  the  Reformation  when 
the  shaft  of  Luther  struck  the  captive  stream  ;  such 
an  awakening  but  a  more  significant  and  hopeful 
one — has  been  heralded  for  this  whole  Rej^ublic, 
East  and  West,  North  and  South,  and  for  all 
humanity  by  the  triumph  of  the  Right  in  the  recent 
four  years'  conflict  in  which  all  have  been  the  con- 
querors. 


PROCEEDINGS,  ETC. 


At  a  meeting  of  the  New-York  Historical  Societj^,  lielcl  in  tlie 
Academy  of  Music,  in  the  City  of  New-York,  on  AVeclnesday, 
December  16th,  1868,  to  celebrate  the  Sixty-fom-th  Anniver- 
sary of  the  Fovmding  of  the  Society  : 

The  President,  Mr.  Haimilton  Fish,  after  calling  the  Society  to 
order,  said : 

"  Ladies  and  Gentlemei^  :  The  New-York  Historical  Society 
has  asked  your  presence,  this  evening,  to  unite  with  them  in  com- 
memorating the  Sixty-fourth  Anniversary  of  the  foundation  of 
tlieir  Society.  It  will  be  celebrated  by  a  discourse  deliverecl  by 
Mr.  John  Lotheop  Motley,  whose  name  belongs  to_  no  single 
,'  country  and  to  no  single  age.  As  a  statesman,  and  diplomatist, 
and  patriot,  he  belongs  to  America  ;  as  a  scholar,  to  the  world  of 
letters ;  as  a  liistorian,  all  ages  will  claim  him  in  the  future. 

"The  exercises  of  the  evening  will  commence  with  prayer  by 
the  Rev.  Dr.  DeWitt,  the  First  Vice-President  of  the  Society, 
after  which  the  Anniversary  Discourse  will  be  delivered  by 
Mr.  Motley.  Subsequently  the  benediction  will  be  pronounced  by 
the  Right  Reverend  Dr.  Potter,  Bishop  of  New-York,  and  there- 
after, without  formal  vote  or  motion,  the  meeting  Avill  stand  ad- 
journed." 

Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  Address,  Mr.  Guliajt  C.  Ver- 
PLANCK  rose,  and  said :  That  the  pleasing  duty  of  presenting  a 
resolution  of  thanks  to  the  orator  of  the  evening  had  been  assigned 
to  him,  as  the  senior  member  of  the  Society  ;  but  what  was  thus 
made  his  duty  he  thought  he  might  safely  claim  as  a  right,  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  half  a  century  ago  he  had  delivered  an 
Anniversary  Address  before  the  Society.  He  had  been  followed 
on  this  annual  festival  by  a  great  number  of  illustrious  names. 
Mr.  Verplanck  warmly  commended  the  discom-se  to  which  the 
audience  had  just  listened  ;  spoke  of  the  skill  with  which  different 
periods  of  history  had  been  contrasted  and  compared,  and  the 


74     . 

genial  and  hopeful  philosophy  which  pervaded  it ;  and  concluded 
by  oftering  the  following  resolution  : 

llesolved,  That  the  thanks  of  tliis  Society  be  presented  to  Mr. 
Motley  for  his  eloquent  and  instructive  discourse  delivered  this 
evening,  and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a  copy  for  publi- 
cation. 

Mr.  William  Cullen  Bryant  rose,  and  said  : 

"  I  take  great  pleasure  in  seconding  the  resolution  which  has 
just  been  read.  The  eminent  historian  of  the  Dutch  Republic, 
who  lias  made  the  story  of  its  earlier  days  as  interesting  as  that 
of  Athens  and  Sparta,  and  who  has  infused  into  the  narrative  the 
generous  glow  of  his  own  genius,  has  the  highest  of  titles  to  be 
heard  Avith  respectful  attention  by  the  citizens  of  a  community 
Avhich,  in  its  origin,  Avas  an  offshoot  of  that  renowned  republic. 
And  cheerfully  has  that  title  been  recognized,  as  the  vast  audience 
assembled  here  to-niglit,  in  spite  of  the  storm,  fully  testifies  ;  and 
well  has  our  illustrious  friend  spoke  of  the  growtli  of  civilization 
and  of  the  improvement  in  the  condition  of  mankind,  both  in  the 
Old  World — the  institutions  of  which  he  has  so  lately  observed — 
and  in  the  country  which  is  proud  to  claim  him  as  one  of  her 
children.  It  is  fitting,  also,  that  my  old  friend  of  more  than  forty 
years,  who  in  1818,  the  exact  term  of  half  a  century  since,  delivered 
before  this  Society,  A\lK'n  DeWitt  Clijs'ton  Avas  its  President, 
one  of  the  noblest  public  discourses  tliat  Avas  ever  listened  to  in 
this  or  in  any  other  country — it  Avas  fitting  that  one  so  distinguish- 
ed sliould  rise  to  express  in  Avords  Avhat  Ave  all  feel  in  our  hearts. 

"Tliis  Society,  Mr.  President,  as  has  just  been  observed,  has 
often  been  honored  by  public  addresses  from  the  great  men  of 
our  Stale.  The  A^olume  of  Collections  of  the  Society,  Avhich  con- 
tains the  magnificent  discourse  of  Mr.  Verplanck,  contains 
others  from  Gouverneur  Morris,  one  of  tlie  most  eloquent  men  of 
his  day;  from  Dr.  IIosack,  eminent  in  tlie  healing  art;  from  the 
learned  Dr.  Jarvis,  and  from  Wiieaton,  the  famed  expounder  of 
the  laAV  of  nations. 

"To  these  honors  is  now  to  be  added  that  of  tliis  evening,  and 
I  therefore  claim  your  voices  for  this  ex})ression  of  acknowledg- 
ment to  the  distinguished  visitor  from  another  State,  Avho  has 
just  addressed  us,  and  who  from  this  moment  is  no  longer  a 
stranger  in  NcAV-York." 

The  resolution  Avas  ado])ted  unanimously. 

Extract  from  the  Minutes. 

Andkeav  Warner, 

Recording  Secretary, 


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